':^'. .<^ 



<^' ■'■s.. 






^ :| 



^^ -^^ 



.'.% 






Af 



-^^ 

<?•, 



'^,^' 

^'^ -^^ 



^^^" ^c^. 



%.^^ 
.^^ 



c5 ^^^ '^ 



-0' 






.^ -x. 



V ^\-' 



c^O' 



'^^ J'^' 



^.. V^ 



,r ^- 









\..<^^' : 






-r. 






,0 O, 



v'?-* 









.^^" ^ 



v^' 



'^.^'/..s^ A^^ ...>« 



^^ '/ ^<,s 



.# 



. ''o. 



^^. ''^^A V^ 



^^^ '^^ 



^ .V 















'^^' i. 



OS- 






-i> c « '^ ^> ,. '^o.- 






v^^- .^>5:W-. ^ t' 



. .^ 



r ''=^.. - 



x^^. 






c,^^ -V%#V^, '^^^'...Ov^' J*" 



/:--X''-\/.^ 



tp 



■^,.<^ 









^^ V^ 



. "^;^ 






'^^ .^\^" 



:- .0t 



V 
V./^, 



r 4"'% 



^^ "."^^Ws^ .<^ 



^^ 









^^ ^^. 






%.^r.^^v 



-,s^ % 



./ 



LIFE OF 



Henry Winter Davis 



BY 

BERNARD C. STEINER 



ir 




JOHN MURPHY COMPANY 

PUBLISHERS 

BALTIMORE - - MARYLAND 

1916 



JJZ(c^ ij6 



Copyright, 1916, 
^ JOHN MURPHY COMPANY 



M 27 l&(5 



Press of JOHN MURPHY COMPANY, Baltimore, Md. 

©C1.A431656 



PREFACE 

Two Border State Union men did much to 
save Maryland to the Nation in 1861, and 
their characteristics were so diverse that they 
tempt one to write parallel lives of them, as 
Plutarch did of ancient statesmen. The life 
of one, the great lawyer, Reverdy Johnson, 
for some time occupied my thought Having 
completed a study of Johnson's career, I took 
up the life of the great orator, Henry Winter 
Davis, and have endeavored to write his ^4ife, 
in the manner of Tacitus and Plutarch, rather 
than in that of the modern biographer, who 
tells us what we ought to know from the his- 
tories" (Saturday Review, December 13, 1913, 
page 750). In this study I have been much 
assisted by an autobiographic sketch of Mr. 
Davis's early years, written by him shortly be- 
fore his death and placed in my hands by Miss 
Mary Winter Davis, his only living daugh- 
ter. This sketch forms the first three chap- 
ters of the book. Much assistance has also 
been obtained from the volume published by 
Harper and Brothers in 1867 at the instance 
of Mrs. Davis, entitled '^Speeches and Ad- 
dresses Delivered in the Congress of the 
United States and on Several Public Occasions 
by Henry Winter Davis." The editorial in- 



troductions to the speeches therein printed 
are valuable. Unfortunately, I am unable 
positively to name the editor. The publishers 
have no information as to this matter. Mr. 
Joseph M. Gushing, an intimate political 
friend of Mr. Davis, once told me that the 
editor was George B. Milligan, Esq., while 
Capt. Henry P. Goddard was informed 
that the editor was Henry Stockbridge, Esq.; 
yet the families of neither of these gentlemen 
can throw any light upon the matter. I am 
much obliged to Messrs. John T. Graham and 
W. Hall Harris for information. The collec- 
tions of the Maryland Historical Society also 
has been useful in preparing this book. It is 
a privilege to bring again to the attention of 
men one who was a fearless combatant for 
what he believed to be the right, an eloquent 
speaker, a ready debater and an honorable 
man, to whom more than to any other one man 
is it due that Maryland freed her slaves in 
1864. 



CONTENTS 



CHAPTER I— Early Years, 1817-33 7 

II — Kenyon College and Tutorship, 1833-39. ^9 

III — The University of Virginia, 1839-40- • • • 46 

IV — Practice of Law in Alexandria and Bal- 
timore, 1840-55 64 

Vr— The Thirty-third Congress, 1855-57 80 

VI — The Thirty-fourth Congress, 1857-59- •• 112 

VII — The Thirty-fifth Congress and the Strug- 
gle to Preserve the Union, 1859-61 •• 144 

VIII — Support of the Union, 1861-63 194 

IX — The Thirty-seventh Congress and the 

Struggle with Lincoln, 1863-65 235 

X — Last Days, 1865 350 



"I saw him beat the surges under him, 
And ride upon their backs. He trod the water, 
Whose enmity he flung aside, and breasted 
The surge most swoln that met him. His bold head 
'Bove the contentious waves he kept, and oared 
Himself with his good arms in lusty stroke 
To the shore, that o'er his wave-worn basis bowed. 
As stooping to relieve him. I not doubt 
He came alive to land." 
— Shakespeare (The Tempest, Act 2, Scene i, lines 1 14-122). 

"The brilliant chief, irregularly great, 
Frank, haughty, rash, — the Rupert of Debate." 

Lord Lytton (The New Timon, page 31). 

"A man must be measured, not by individual words or deeds, 
but by the whole completed record of his accomplishments, and 
by the dominant motive of his life." — {Ephraim Emerton in 
7 Harvard Theological Review, 229.) 

"Government is a trust and the officers of government are 
trustees, and both the trust and the trustees are created for the 
benefit of the people." — Henry Clay at Lexington, Ky., March, 
1829. 



Chapter I. 

EARLY YEARS — FRAGMENTS OF 

THE EVENTS OF MY LIFE AND 

TIMES (1817-1833). 

[Written in 1865.] 

I am now forty-eight years old. 

The glories of the world have passed before 
me, but have not lighted on my head. 

I have lived during great events in which I 
have not been permitted to be an actor; but I 
have been near enough the scene of action to 
be able to appreciate the powers and conduct 
of the actors and the causes of events. A few 
brief memoranda of them may lend interest to 
the sketch of my uneventful life. 

I was born on the i6th of August, 1817, in 
Annapolis, Maryland, at the old Parsonage. 

My father, the Rev. Henry Lyon Davis, 
D. D.,^ was then president of St. John's Col- 
lege and rector or pastor of St. Ann's Parish. 

The old church then stood in its original 
form, of colonial origin, with its square, high- 
backed pews, the pulpit far advanced in the 
body of the building of the old goblet style, 
with a lid hanging by a chain from the lofty 
ceiling; and immediately before our pew was 
that of the Colonial Governor, with the socket 



8 HENRY WINTER DAVIS 

for the mace which marked his dignified pres- 
ence. 

My father was a man of genius, endowed 
with varied and profound learning, eminently 
versed in mathematics and natural science, 
abounding in classical lore, endowed with a 
vast memory and gifted with an accurate, con- 
cise, clear and graceful style; rich and fluent 
in conversation, but without the least preten- 
sion to oratory and entirely incapable of ex- 
tempory speaking. 

He was of high tone and temper, the most 
unbending independence, and sensitive to the 
least suspicion of soliciting favor even to a 
marked degree. 

He was a Federalist of the most elevated 
stamp — early embraced and always adhered 
to. He was a graduate of Carlisle, in Penn- 
sylvania, where he contracted an early friend- 
ship for Roger B. Taney, who then was of the 
same way of thinking on public affairs, and to- 
gether during the whiskey rebellion they illus- 
trated at once their courage and conviction by 
heading a party of students in cutting down 
the liberty pole which the disaffected had 
erected in Carlisle in defiance of the govern- 
ment. 

Their fate was singularly different. 

My father was removed from the presiden- 
cy of St. John's by a Board of Democratic 



CHAPTER I— 1817-1833 9 

trustees because of his Federal politics, and 
while Mr. Taney was in President Jackson's 
Cabinet my father, at the end of a letter to me, 
then at Kenyon, gave me my only lesson in 
politics in this laconic sentence: "My son, be- 
ware of the follies of Jacksonism/^^ Such was 
my father's popularity among the students and 
his reputation for learning and ability, that 
nearly the whole body of young men deserted 
the college and followed him to his private 
residence for the benefit of his instruction ; and 
his successor, Mr. Raf]ferty,^ an Irish Demo- 
crat, took possession of an empty college. 

This gentleman had the usual amount of 
letters with vs'-hich Democrats are usually tinc- 
tured and, having occasion to deliver an ad- 
dress shortly after his elevation, people were 
surprised at the eloquence of the style and the 
familiarity with literature it exhibited, till 
my father tracked him through his pilferings 
and in a pamphlet replete with refined and 
classic Latin shewed the precious stones which 
glittered on Mr. Raflferty's pages to be frag- 
ments stolen from the composition of a num- 
ber of celebrated writers artfully joined into 
the mosaic which he palmed on the public as 
his composition. 

Of this pamphlet I have never seen but one 
copy — probably the only one in existence — 



lo HENRY WINTER DAVIS 

now, I believe, in the State Library at Annap- 
olis. 

My mother was Jane Brown Winter,^ a lady 
of graceful and simple manners, fair complex- 
ion, blue eyes, auburn hair, with a rich and 
exquisite voice that still thrills my memory 
with the echo of its vanished music. She was 
highly educated for her day, when Annapolis 
was the focus of intellect and fashion for 
Maryland, and its fruits shone through her 
conversation and colored and completed her 
natural eloquence, which my father used to 
say would have made her an orator if it had 
not been thrown away on a woman. 

She was the incarnation of all that was 
Christian in life and hope, in charity and 
thought, ready for every good work, herself 
the example of what she taught. 

She had only two children, myself and my 
sister, Jane Mary Winter Davis, born on the 
29th of January, 1821. 

Under the inspiration of our mother's life 
and teaching, my sister grew into the Chris- 
tian Missionary, and for years on the coast of 
China dedicated herself to kindling with her 
husband, the Rev. Edward W. Syle,* the 
watch-fires for that great nation. 

I can boast of no such dedication of my life, 
nor of any special points of this early training, 
but the exhortations and warnings so fervid 



CHAPTER I— 1817-1833 II 

and incessant from my mother's lips against 
the vices and excesses which specially beset 
youth and early manhood have not been whol- 
ly without their reward in preserving me from 
dangers which, with my temperament, would 
have proved fatal to my body and mind. 

My education was begun very early at home. 
Under the sharp discipline of my aunt Eliza- 
beth Brice Winter, I could read before I was 
four, though much against my will. 

Nearly all my instruction was at home; but 
for a short time I was among the small boys 
at St. John's Grammar School. 

When my father was removed from St. 
John's, he went to Wilmington, Delaware, and 
till he became settled there I went with my 
aunt to Alexandria, D. C, w4iere I went to 
school for a while to Mr. Wheat. Thence I 
went to Wilmington, where I was instructed 
under my father's supervision, and that in- 
struction continued when, in 1827, he removed 
back to Maryland and settled on a farm in 
Anne Arundel county. 

There my love for outdoor life and sports 
gave small promise of scholarly proficiency. 
I was always too glad to exchange my Latin 
grammar^ and Erasmus for a turn in the 
fields behind a plough and with a scythe taken 
from one of the slaves, who were always glad 
of my company and a relief; and before I was 



12 HENRY WINTER DAVIS 

eleven I was inspired with the sporting fever 
and roamed the country with a gun larger than 
I well could bear, superintended by a trusty 
servant, Frank Garner, to see that I did not 
shoot myself instead of the birds. Frank lived 
to be set free by me and to enter the United 
States service during the rebellion, to drive an 
ammunition wagon through the peninsula 
campaign of McClellan, till the army lay at 
Hampton Landing. He returned consider- 
ably hardened on the subject of life. "Lord, 
Master Henry, a dead man ain't no more to 
me than a dead chicken." He saw the rebel 
charge at Malvern Hill, and his judgment on 
the rebels was that they would stand fire very 
well, but not the push of the northern bayonet. 
He was my guardian in my holidays and my 
sports, and he lived to see his race reach the 
promised land. 

In 1830 my father sent his slaves to the East- 
ern Shore of Maryland. I asked the privi- 
lege of accompanying them. We came down 
the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad in the horse- 
car, reached Baltimore at night, slept in the 
car all night. In the morning I set forth to 
hunt transportation across the Bay, but found 
the basin and the Bay fast frozen, though early 
in December. 

We could find no conveyance, and set ofif on 
foot to walk by way of Havre de Grace and 



CHAPTER I— 1817-1833 13 

Elkton to George Town Cross Roads, a dis- 
tance of eighty miles, the snow ankle deep and 
unbroken. We walked over the Susquehanna 
on the ice, and at the end of three days had ac- 
complished our march — a pretty good one for 
a boy of thirteen years. 

My familiar association with the slaves 
while a boy gave me great insight into their 
feelings and views. They spoke with freedom 
before a boy what they would have repressed 
before a man. They were far from indiffer- 
ent to their condition. They felt the wrong 
and sighed for freedom. They were attached 
to my father and loved me, yet they habitually 
spoke of the days when God would deliver 
them, when white people would be punished 
for their ill treatment, and they constantly 
considered that their master would have a 
great account to settle at the day of judgment 
for them; or, as they expressed it, ^'Master 
will have many a black man hanging to his 
coat tail when he is trying to get into heaven 
at the last day." 

At that time nobody taught that slavery was 
anything but wrong and evil; the negroes of 
my father, like other men, were taught to look 
forward to a day of freedom, either in Africa, 
or absolutely at his death. I have a letter of 
my father's to Mr. T. McDowell, of Wil- 
mington, dated 4th March, 1828, at Poplar 



14 HENRY WINTER DAVIS 

Spring, which his daughter, Mrs. Spooner, 
kindly sent me because of its bearing on the 
negro question now. In it he says: ^'By the 
blessing of God, I am now on my own farm 
and have servants more than enough to culti- 
vate it. As my black people reach 25 years I 
emancipate them and send them to Liberia, 
having first taught them to read." ^ 

I and my sister were the teachers for that 
instruction. Most of them, young and old 
learned to read well, but none of them could 
ever be induced to take their freedom on con- 
dition of going to Liberia, and they all ob- 
tained their freedom only after my father's 
death from my sister and myself. 

The South brought on rebellion and the cot- 
ton culture first turned the tide of opinion 
against freedom and towards slavery; and the 
Georgia man, with his broad white hat in 
quest of slaves, was the emblem of the change 
about 1830. As an illustration of the temper 
of the times, it may not be unworthy to men- 
tion that during my father's absence my 
motherplaced me at a Methodist lady's school. 
My father, on his return, instantly removed 
me. He was a most liberal man for his day, 
but the exodus of the Methodists was then still 
so recent that they were looked upon as sort 
of rebel Episcopalians — not an independent 
sect. 



CHAPTER I— 1817-1833 15 

Nor was political temper less violent or 
more excluded from private life. I once 
mingled with the boys at a funeral of a Demo- 
cratic gentleman during the fierce contest be- 
tween Adams and Jackson, and I was imme- 
diately saluted with the inquiry, "What are 
you doing at a Democratic funeral?". From 
my kind relation's, Dr. David Davis ^ hospit- 
able house, where I passed the winter, I went 
to Alexandria, to the care of my aunt, and by 
her was put to school under Rev. Loring 
Woart ^ at Howard, near the Theological 
Seminary of Virginia. 

He was a cultured and elegant gentleman; 
he married Miss West of the Woodyard and 
was lost on the Pulaski, whose disaster is fa- 
mous. 

Mrs. Wilmer,^ the widow of the Rev. Dr. 
Wilmer, of Alexandria, mother of the present 
Bishop Wilmer, of Alabama, kept the house, 
one of the kindest and sweetest of women. 

I never have met a man who could lead, 
control and influence youth as Mr. Woart did. 
He joined in our sports on the lawn, led the 
skating matches, the swimming expedition, 
spoke ex-cathedra in the schoolroom, and in 
the long winter evenings read Scott's novels to 
an entranced crowd, giving full effect to the 
dramatic cast of the narrative by rich and 



i6 HENRY WINTER DAVIS 

varied voice. It was a high lesson in the art 
of elocution. 

At that school, which was very select, I met 
some persons who have since become of note 
in various ways. Richard Wilmer is a bishop. 
George, his brother is an eminent minister, 
who dofifed the gown for the rebel uniform 
and musket. Mansfield Lovell ^^ commanded 
the forces which evacuated New Orleans. 
Barton Key,^' long the United States District 
Attorney in Washington, the son of the author 
of the ^'Star-Spangled Banner," whose tragic 
death at the hand of Sickles ^^ convulsed Wash- 
ington, and Wilmer Connell, my oldest friend 
living, a friendship inherited from our fa- 
thers, now a gentleman of fortune, living in 
hospitable ease near Philadelphia. 

NOTES ON CHAPTER i. 

1. Rev. Henry Lyon Davis was born in 1775 and died in 
Howard county (then a part of Anne Arundel county) on his 
plantation, near Woodbine, in 1837. He graduated at 
Dickinson College in 1795. He was in charge of St. 
John's College, as vice-principal from 1816 to 1820, and as 
principal from 1820 to 1824. Rev. Ethan Allen wrote of him 
as "a man of much learning, of vigorous mind and of com- 
manding personal stature." {Steiner's Education in Maryland, 
page 106.) 

2. Rev. William Rafferty was elected professor of Ancient 
Languages in 1819, vice-principal in 1820, and was principal 
from 1824 to 1831. 

3. Mrs. Davis's health was much impaired in her later 
years, so that her children had much of their training from 



CHAPTER I— 1817-1833 17 

their aunt, according to the recollection of Governor Edwin 
Warfield, whose father was a neighbor of Rev. H. L. Davis. 

4. "The Rev. Dr. Edward W. Syle, a missionary of this 
Society in China from 1845 to 1861, died in England on the 5th 
of October last, in the seventy-fourth year of his age. About 
a year ago he was stricken with paralysis, but resumed his 
work. The day before he died he had a second stroke. Mr. 
Syle, an alumnus of the Theological Seminary of Virginia, was 
appointed, with several others, at the meeting of the Foreign 
Committee in November, 1844. Mr. Syle and his wife sailed 
from Boston on the 28th of May, 1845, and arrived at Hong 
Kong on the 4th of October following, in time to join in the 
establishment of the mission station at Shanghai. He visited 
this country in 1853, because of impaired health, and presented 
the claims of the China mission with great earnestness and 
much success. For a time he was engaged by the Domestic 
Committee in work among the Chinese in California. He re- 
turned to China in April, 1856, and resumed charge of Christ 
Church in the native city. Among his plans for benefiting the 
people to whom he was ministering, Mr. Syle established an 
industrial school for blind communicants and such other blind 
persons as chose to attend. This charity was received with 
much favor in Shanghai. 

"Since his resignation Dr. Syle has been employed in China 
and Japan, holding, chaplaincies for seamen and for foreign 
residents. He never, however, lost his interest in the Chinese 
missionary work. For about six years he has been living in 
or near London, during which time he has been employed with 
much frequency in representing the Church Missionary Society 
throughout that country." (Through the kindness of Rev. Dr. 
Frank M. Gibson, Librarian of the Maryland Diocesan Library, 
I have been furnished this information, contained in the organ 
of the Protestant Episcopal Church Missionary Society, The 
Spirit of Missions, for September, 1890.) 

5. Creswell, in Speeches and Addresses (page 19) stated that 
Davis always kept his Greek Testament lying on his table for 
easy reference. On his knowledge of Latin, Creswell (page 18) 
cites the fact that in a visit to him, shortly before Davis's 
death, Davis said that he often exercised himself in translating 
from Tacitus. 



i8 HENRY WINTER DAVIS 

7. Dr. Davis was Henry Winter Davis's uncle and was the 
father of the Hon. David Davis, Associate Justice of the United 
States Supreme Court, and United States Senator from Hlinois 

(1815-1886). 

8. On the loss of the Pulaski, see "Steamboat Disasters and 
Railroad Accidents," by S. A. Howl and — Worcester, 1846, pages 
59, 88, 89. The steamboat was lost because of "the explosion 
of her starboard boiler, when off the coast of North Carolina, 
and on her passage from Charleston to Baltimore, June 14, 1838, 
by which disastrous event nearly one hundred persons per- 
ished." 

9. Rev. William Holland Wilmer (1782-1827) was the father 
of Bishop Richard Hooker Wilmer (1816-1900) and of Rev. 
George Thornton Wilmer (died 1898). Whitaker's Life of 
Bishop Wilmer (page 17) states that "in 1831 Mrs. Wilmer re- 
moved to the Seminary Hill and opened a High School on the 
site of what is now the residence of the principal of the Episco- 
pal High School. She employed two instructors, both clergy- 
men, and limited the number of pupils to eighteen. The school 
continued for three years." 

10. Gen. Mansfield Lovell, of the Confederate Army (1822- 
1884). 

11. Philip Barton Key, killed February 27, 1859. 

12. Gen. Daniel Edgar Sickles (1825-1914). 



CHAPTER II— 1833-1839 19 



Chapter II. 

KENYON COLLEGE AND TUTOR- 
SHIP (1833-1839)- 

From Howard we both went to Kenyon 
College, in Ohio, in the fall of 1833. 

It was then the Garden of the Lord for 
young Episcopalians. Bishop Chase,^ the lit- 
erary Daniel Boone of the West, had planted 
it with money begged abroad; he presided 
over its destinies with patriarchal despotism 
till its growth required a different and more 
steady rule, and then went forth to found an- 
other garden farther in the forest, while 
Bishop Mcllvain ^ came to guide Kenyon to 
its future fortunes. 

I got there during the first year of Mcll- 
vain. 

Wilmer Connell was my chum. My letter 
states the share of the burthens. On rising 
'Wilmer and I make up our beds; he makes 
the fire and I sweep out the room, I bring a 
bucket of water at night for washing; in the 
morning, for drinking during the day." Shoes 
shone only on state occasions. 

I was the sole representative and substitute 
of the swarm of black people who ate my fa- 
ther out of house and home. 



20 HENRY WINTER DAVIS 

Under such a system the expenses ought not 
to have been great; but I read now with some 
amusement the following: 

''My whole bill with Mr. Wing, the treas- 
urer, amounts to $88 — that is, $30 for tuition, 
$50 for board and for the attendance of the 
college physician during term, $6 for room 
rent." Washing was $6 per annum. 

The mystery of sending young gentlemen 
from the cultivation of Maryland to the rude 
West for education found its solution in the 
ardor of the Episcopal missionary who found- 
ed Kenyon. He made it the Mecca of Epis- 
copacy. Towards it all good churchmen wor- 
shiped from Louisiana and from Maine. At 
that holy seat the church had assumed its le- 
gitimate prerogative of bringing up youth in 
the way it should go, and all ''churchmen" 
were enthusiastic in supporting the great pro- 
test against Godless education at dissenting 
seminaries. Thus it was that the best people 
not only of Louisiana and North Carolina, but 
from the ends of Maine and the neighborhood 
of Harvard, sent their sons to Kenyon, that 
they might sit under the drippings of Episco- 
pal grace. 

In these days of extravagance it will hardly 
be believed that eighty or a hundred dollars 
covered every legitimate and reasonable ex- 
pense of a year at the college, and that in the 



CHAPTER II— 1833-1839 21 

woods not much more could be spent for want 
of things desirable to purchase. 

This cheapness doubtless quickened the sec- 
tarian zeal which prompted so distant a pil- 
grimage to so holy a shrine. For me it was a 
fortunate and a determining circumstance. 

I crossed the Alleghanies by the National 
Road, on the top of the stage for the benefit of 
the scenery. It was my first view of the great 
ridge which I then climbed so painfully, but 
over which now the great railway hurries us 
with such reckless speed. When I crossed the 
Ohio I saw the new and strange West, the 
land freed for the development of republican 
equality. Gone were the smooth and open 
lands, the aristocratic old mansions and the 
swarm of slaves to which I had been accus- 
tomed in Maryland and Virginia. The skele- 
tons of the forest, bland and barkless, stood 
amid growing wheat and corn; the houses 
were small frame buildings, with red gables 
and red sides, perched on the tops of hills, 
whence every tree was cleaned, and every hori- 
zon was a forest and every house solitary. 

But I was pleased ^'with the general ap- 
pearance of the country, and especially with 
the houses, the appearance of which was bet- 
ter than the country houses of those parts of 
Pennsylvania and Virginia through which I 
passed." 



22 HENRY WINTER DAVIS 

I arrived at Gambler on the 28th of October, 
1833, in a snowstorm, the ground frozen wher- 
ever it was bared by the wind — after having 
broken down four stages, and one of them 
four times, on the horrible roads and come 
many times in great danger of being tumbled 
over. 

Kenyon was then the centre of vast forests, 
broken only by occasional clearings, excepting 
along the lines of chief transit — the National 
road and the Ohio river and its navigable trib- 
utaries. The main college building was large 
and solidly built, so solidly that it was singu- 
larly enough looked on with jealousy by the 
''natives" of the neighborhood, to whom its be- 
ing built with ''British" money suggested the 
suspicion that it was a "British" fort disguised 
as a college. 

Everything but the college itself was of the 
most primitive and temporary character. All 
buildings were of wood unseasoned. 

The great avenue was unimproved and with- 
out even planks or elevated paths, and when 
the ground was not frozen in the winter that 
Western soil was worked into mud so deep 
that it was "an every-day occurrence to see 
thirty or forty or fifty students strung single 
file on the top of the fence going to their 
meals." 



CHAPTER II— 1833-1839 23 

My room was in the seventy-four — a vast 
factory-like building for the younger boys' 
dormitory and recitation rooms. The green 
planks had parted company, and through the 
long seams not only wind but light penetrated. 
It was like camping out. The snow drifted 
straight through, covered the bed and made 
drifts on the floor. No fire would keep the 
room warm; our blankets were hung round 
the fireplace to break the force of the wind, 
and vast piles of wood blazed in perpetual 
sacrifice to the cold god who would not be ap- 
peased. The wood was brought by the coun- 
try people, and cost us little but the labor of 
cutting it ourselves. For servants were an un- 
known luxury, and we cleaned our own rooms, 
made our own beds, blacked our own shoes 
and cut and brought in our own wood and 
made our own fires — when by accident they 
went out. Such a life was healthy, and to 
young men of sixteen not unpleasant. We 
were proof against every form of exposure. 
My cloak hung untouched for four years on 
the wall. One night, cold, clear, the moon 
glittering on the snow, some outlaws from the 
college invaded our department, threw up our 
windows and covered us with a shower of 
snowballs, a challenge to combat when we 
were undressed for bed. We instantly sallied 
forth just as we were, in shirts and drawers, 



24 HENRY WINTER DAVIS 

into the deep snow, had a battle royal, cleared 
our territory of the invaders and went to bed 
in a glow, none the worse for the midnight 
campaign in dishabille. 

It was the day of self-supporting or manual 
labor schools, by which the difference between 
learning and labor, the mechanic and the stu- 
dent was to be obliterated; when labor was 
not to exhaust, but only to sharpen the appe- 
tite for letters, and the wearied form was to 
find rest in the assertion of the independence 
of the mind on matter. 

I with others were instructed from home by 
my father, by my mother and by my aunt, to 
engage in the pleasant task of cleaning and 
grubbing certain acres of new land for — noth- 
ing a day; and not a few hours of exhaustion 
were spent in testing thus fully of this new 
theory of leveling the inequalities of God. Of 
course, it failed, and was everywhere aban- 
doned, for it was erecting into a rule the he- 
roic success of a few rare and indomitable 
spirits who, under the spur of ambition and 
poverty, did what the mass of students neither 
poor nor ambitious did not care to attempt and 
could not be compelled needlessly to accom- 
plish. I lost some hours of pleasure, a few of 
study and strengthened a constitution already 
strong enough ! 

My first year in the preparatory department 



CHAPTER II— 1833-1839 25 

was spent in these exercises, occasional gun- 
ning contrary to law — repealed by the com- 
mon law of the West, whose Solon was Nim- 
rod or Boone; and in the studies necessary to 
secure my entrance to the freshman class next 
year. Lessons beyond those of my class were 
exacted of me. My time seems to have been 
well employed. The most important work 
of the year was the translation of the whole 
of Sallust's '^Bellum Catilinarium," a work 
which was much more a lesson in English 
writing than in Latin construction and tended 
more than anything could have done to fix the 
habit of brief, sincere and pointed expression. 
When completed it was sent home to attest my 
industry and progress. 

I joined the Philalethic Society of the pre- 
paratory department. 

There were two societies, divided between 
the Northern and Southern students. For this 
was in 1833 ; the first attempt of the negro and 
cotton interest to defy the United States was 
in 1830, and the agitation had only just been 
suppressed by the firmness of President Jack- 
son and the conciliatory tariff bill of Mr. 
Clay; but the division of feeling survived, 
and in the backwoods among youths at college 
secession was effected in their societies, a 
prophecy ignorantly made of things to come. 

The one society of the preparatory depart- 



26 HENRY WINTER DAVIS 

ment had been divided the year before I came 
by the withdrawal of the Northern students, 
and I joined the Southern society on my ar- 
rival. 

I am amazed to see what a bundle of South- 
ern prejudices I carried to college with me. 
Indulging them brought down on me the stern 
rebuke of my father. 

In my first letter to my mother from Ken- 
yon I said: ^'The Southern students I am 
pleased with; the Northern I am not much 
acquainted with and have no desire to be so." 

My father had small toleration for such fol- 
ly, and sharply reprimanded my silly preju- 
dices in avoidingNorthern associations, among 
whom the best students were to be found, and 
regretted my joining the Southern society. 

My presumptuous reply will strikingly il- 
lustrate the strength of the virus then already 
poured into the blood of Southern youth in 
spite of the liberal views of the parents. 

''As to my having joined the Southern so- 
ciety, I cannot possibly conceive where the 
fault lies. I was from the South, had been 
born and bred in the South, and why, when 
there was a Southern society on the hill, I 
should join the Northern, I cannot conceive. 
You seem to have gotten wrong ideas of the 
difference that now exists between Northern- 
ers and Southerners. About a year since the 



CHAPTER II— 1833-1839 27 

Philalethic was a neutral society, and on ac- 
count of some disagreement between the mem- 
bers the Northerners withdrew from it and 
formed a society of Northerners. All persons 
coming from different parts of the Union were 
expected to join the society belonging to the 
part from which he comes. The Northerners 
would never have dreamed of my joining their 
society. Nothing could be more disagreeable 
to me than to belong to their society. Their 
manner and habits are so different from what 
I have been accustomed. Because I have not 
joined the Northern side is no reason that I 
should be at enmity with them. They come 
to my room and I go to theirs as frequently as 
anywhere else." 

The very germs of separation inspired me 
unconsciously. My father saw that unity of 
ideas and feelings is the only foundation of 
national unity, and strove to keep me in the 
light path. 

Party spirit ran high, and even the disci- 
pline of the faculty was impeached of partial- 
ity to the Northern students. 

^'The faculty are nearly all Yankees, and 
they take care not to depart from their Yan- 
kee principles. They are very partial to their 
kindred. I have known an instance in which 
a Yankee and Southerner were employed in a 
frolic together. It was found out — for they 



28 HENRY WINTER DAVIS 

have spies everywhere. The Southerner was 
brought to trial to answer for his misdeeds and 
to pay the penalty by dismission, while the 
Yankee was permitted to remain in rest and 
quiet." 

Such was the spirit prevailing at Kenyon in 
1833 and 1834. 

On October 29, 1834, I passed my examina- 
tion and entered the freshman class. I was 
promoted to the college building. Wilmer 
Connell was called home by his father's death 
and soon plunged into commercial life and 
laid the foundation of his splendid fortune, 
with which he now dispenses a liberal hospi- 
tality at his country seat near Philadelphia. 

My companion now was a Mr. Moore, of 
Rhode Island, of ambrosial curls, loud voice, 
vast vanity and little head. His Northern 
home had taught him to close the doors which 
my education had neglected and my hardy life 
in the Seventy-four had taught me to despise, 
till Moore broke me into civilized habits by 
calling me from the first to the third floor as 
if for something urgent, and then pointing to 
the open door, dismissed me with the lesson. 

I pardon him for this and everything else 
except his allowing me to sleep through the 
grand phenomenon of the 'Tailing Stars" of 
1834, which to susceptible minds seemed the 
very emblem of the last day, while he with all 



CHAPTER II— 1833-1839 29 

the rest of the college watched those strange 
fires till they ceased to shower. 

What punishment is equal to such conduct? 

As the sphere of study expanded the sub- 
jects of interest increased. Natural science, 
political economy, logic, metaphysics as then 
understood in the United States and England 
— that is to say, psychology on the basis of 
Reid, Stewart and Brown — avoiding the deep 
problems of real metaphysical science, the 
possibility of external knowledge, the concep- 
tion of the infinite and the absolute, the vindi- 
cation of the ways of God to man, or a the- 
odicy unless Butler's Analogy be considered to 
touch that problem in some of its relations — 
were seized on and prosecuted with a zest that 
attested the natural bent of my mind. The 
foundations for future building were laid. 

But the fruitful fields of exploration were 
those on either side of the narrow highway of 
the prescribed march. 

While a boy of ten or eleven I had become 
familiar with the classics of Addison, Johnson 
and Swift, Cowper and Pope and Robertson. 

I now plunged into the current of History. 
It was the transition period from the shallow 
though graceful pages of Gillies and Rollins, 
Russell and Tytler, and the rabbinical ag- 
glomeration of Shuckford and Prideaux, to 
the modern school of free, profound and pow- 



30 HENRY WINTER DAVIS 

erful investigation which has reared immortal 
monuments to its memory in Hallam, Ma- 
caulay, Grote, Bancroft, Motley, Niebuhr, 
Bunsen, Schlosser and Thiers and their fol- 
lowers. 

But of these great works none but Niebuhr's 
History of Rome, Hallam, were then in evi- 
dence or known in the backwoods of Ohio. 
Cousin's History of the Philosophy of the 
Eighteenth Century was just glittering on the 
horizon. Gibbon shone alone as the morning 
star of historic investigation, which he had 
heralded for so long and which was then 
breaking. 

With the materials I did the best I could. 
But only think of seeing the French Revolu- 
tion only in the pages of Burke's brilliant vi- 
tuperation and Scott's Tory diatribe! A re- 
publican picture of the great republican revo- 
lution, the formation of all that is now toler- 
able in Europe, did not exist or was not acces- 
sible in any authentic and comprehensive 
page, and Americans were fed on the foam of 
English fury and taught to hate Jacobins and 
revolutionists as if it were not they who forced 
our principles on aristocracies which hated us, 
avenged in blood the blood of ages, and did 
to their enemies what their enemies had done 
to their fathers through long centuries and 



CHAPTER II— 1833-1839 31 

would have done to them had they not been 
anticipated. 

So that my reading had to be in great meas- 
ure unread in more mature days and with 
ampler resources. 

But I imbibed the nourishment before me, 
was conservative, aristocratic, English in 
thought and view as much as one can be who 
lives in the woods and at the antipodes of 
everything English — a democrat in fact, an 
aristocrat in word — a contradiction which 
Southern origin and education tended to de- 
velop and conceal. 

The English origin of the college, its church 
spirit and character and the admiration of the 
bishop for English forms, led to an attempt 
to naturalize the students' Oxford caps and 
gowns at Kenyon, but the gown was not a con- 
venient garment to chop wood in, the silk tas- 
sel of the cap would make love to the boughs 
of the forest, its hard flat top rocked to and 
fro like a drunken man in every gust, and the 
impatient sons of the West were undergoing 
perpetual metamorphosis from a gownsman 
into a Buckeye in shirt sleeves — till the effort 
was abandoned as against the nature of the 
Western man. 

At the end of the year a change in the 
college term gave me a vacation of three 
months. 



32 HENRY WINTER DAVIS 

I spent all my vacations at college — for the 
distance from home forbade a visit, and I 
availed myself of the time which must be idle 
or filled with study to pursue and complete the 
studies of the Sophomore year, which was 
ahead, to which I had already devoted myself 
during the Freshman year; and at the opening 
of the next session I passed the examination 
for the Junior class. 

It was a pretty sharp trial of resolution and 
dogged diligence, but it saved me a year at col- 
lege, indurated my powers of study and men- 
tal labor into a habit, and perhaps enabled me 
to stay long enough to graduate. I do not 
recommend the example to those more inde- 
pendently situated, for learning must fall like 
the rain in such gentle showers as to sink in if 
it is to be fruitful, and when poured on the 
richest soil in torrents it not only runs ofif with- 
out strengthening vegetation, but washes away 
the soil itself. 

The residue of my college life was more 
fruitful than its beginning. 

The regular studies were respectably prose- 
cuted and have not been wholly without fruit, 
not merely in knowledge, but what is of vastly 
more account, the habit and power of mental 
labor.^ 

These studies were wrought into my mind, 
made part of the intellectual substance by the 



CHAPTER II-1833-1839 33 

vigorous collisions of the societies in which I 
delighted. The questions propounded for de- 
bate were assigned to two or four chief dis- 
putants, heard judicially by the president,^ 
before the faculty, thrown then open for the 
melee of general discussion, and finally the ar- 
guments were summed up and the decision 
pronounced with appropriate and authorita- 
tive criticisms on manner and matter by the 
president. 

For these mimic conflicts I prepared assid- 
uously — not ever in writing, but always with 
a carefully deduced logical analysis and ar- 
rangement of the ideas to be developed in the 
order of argument, with a brief note of any 
quotation or image or illustration on the mar- 
gin at the appointed place. From that brief I 
spoke. 

The societies were two — the N. P. K. (Nu 
Pi Kappa) and the Philomathesian, organized 
in 1832 or 1833, under the inspiration which 
divided the societies of the preparatory de- 
partment, on the basis of the residence of stu- 
dents. This was instigated by and cultivated 
an exclusive spirit, social and political, which 
had just threatened to kindle and has since 
burst into civil war. 

I belonged to the N. P. K, the Southern 
society. The other was the more numerous, 
equally able in intellect, but different in tone 



34 HENRY WINTER DAVIS 

and composition. The former affected aristoc- 
racy; the latter the steady level of Northern 
society. Occasionally gentlemen crossed the 
line in choosing their society. 

The most brilliant of my college friends, 
Howard Smith, was of the number — and from 
Pennsylvania, yet was in the N. P. K. But 
this was exceptional. 

The negro question was an element of divi- 
sion, but not bitter nor exciting. The societies 
were rivals, not foes, and associations followed 
predilection and not origin. 

But the diversity of feeling lay there, only 
awaiting the day of development. Among the 
gentlemen of brilliant promise — not always 
redeemed in after life — were William Smei- 
der, of Kentucky, long since a distinguished 
lawyer of Mississippi; F. K. Hunt, of Ken- 
tucky, famous for his brilliant and genial dec- 
lamation; Horace Smith, of infinite jest, since 
consul at Lisbon; Stephen Griffith Gassoway, 
of Ohio, and William F. Giles, of Mississippi, 
my most valued and devoted friends, who 
have been snatched from life in the midst of 
careers full of great promise, were all mem- 
bers of my class when I entered the Junior 
year, and with such it was a privilege to have 
been associated. 

They were all richly endowed by nature, of 
the highest moral tone, cultivated vastly be- 



CHAPTER II-1833-1839 35 

yond the beaten track of study. Gassoway was 
a poet, a writer of great ease and facility, a 
preternatural power of acquiring, glossed over 
with a harmless and amusing vanity, w^hich 
should rather be termed a just appreciation of 
his powers which he did not care to conceal 
from his friends, but hounded by the ambition 
to be an orator, for which he had not one 
single qualification. 

Giles was filled to overflowing with the 
most varied and rare information, recondite, 
curious, dusty and musty. If he rolled him- 
self over in the dust of a library, his ever-dear 
delight, knowledge, stuck to him like iron fil- 
ings round a magnet, and his rare and antique 
humor procured him the name of Monk- 
barnes. Both sought the ministry, were emi- 
nent in their studies, but died too early to do 
anything but make people deplore the loss of 
so much promise. 

I have not met their like since. Perhaps we 
never do replace the bosom friends of college 
life. 

The authorities of Kenyon were men of 
mark. 

Professor Bache in chemistry,^ Professor 
Buckingham^ in mathematics, Dr. Sparrow^ 
in moral science, were men who would have 
graced any university of Europe. 



36 HENRY WINTER DAVIS 

Dr. Sparrow was a great favorite with the 
students in the pulpit because of his clear 
logic, his profound thought and his singularly 
rich and striking imagery. Wholly without 
manner or action, except an occasional con- 
vulsive throwing forth of the arm to point 
some pointed sentence, with no gift of voice 
to attract, his earnest reading, with his eye on 
his manuscript unless when emphatically lift- 
ed or if to force his words into his hearers, al- 
Vv^ays riveted attention, even in the most 
thoughtless and suppressed the restless weari- 
ness of students doing a duty which they 
wished at an end. 

Alas, that a residence in Virginia should 
have bent his stern principles of morals to the 
necessary deflection for the apology of slavery 
and the rebellion for its maintenance. 

Bishop Mcllvain was a different man in 
mind and style. 

Dr. Sparrow was a recluse and a student; 
the Bishop was a man of the world as well as 
a man of God — but not a man of the Western 
world of that day. 

He was bred in the refinements of New 
Jersey, was versed in the society of Washing- 
ton when Adams, Webster, Clay and Calhoun 
shone there, had been long enough at West 
Point as chaplain to be imbued with its ideas 
and habits of authority and subordination. 



CHAPTER II-1833-1839 37 

From these scenes he was transported to the 
wild woods, rough, free, uncultivated, self- 
dependent people of the West, over whom he 
was to be a bishop, and at the head of a col- 
lege which must conciliate their confidence if 
it were to flourish. His manner and refine- 
ment were not helps, but hindrances. Though 
afifable, kind, devoted, indefatigable, of the 
fine class of minds and of wonderful oratori- 
cal power, he looked and felt too much above 
the average level, was too different from his 
flock and too little able to assimilate himself 
to them, in apostolic phrase to be all things to 
all men — to be as Bishop Chase had been, to 
acquire a leadership over them — and this he 
never did acquire. 

But at the college this great and brilliant 
example of a Christian gentleman, who was a 
bishop without being a bore or a puritan, who 
set the example by his life of what the highest 
style of manner was, and what dignity and 
elevation in character produced in appear- 
ance and bearing and conduct, was of infinite 
use in breeding gentlemen out of the rough 
material there collected, which professors who 
v/ere merely scholars might shape and sharp- 
en, but could never polish or decorate. 

He was a master of the highest art of ora- 
tory. To listen to him on Sunday was a les- 
son in oratory which could be had nowhere 



38 HENRY WINTER DAVIS 

else in the United States, unless at the feet of 
Webster or Clay, nor abroad, but from the 
voice of Brougham. He spoke without a 
manuscript, except on the rarest occasions or 
on the most abstruse topics. His style was 
clear, simple, masterful, but abounding in rich 
imagery, too rich for any place but the pulpit, 
but never overdone nor superabundant. His 
person was elegant and graceful. His pale 
face and forehead, so bald as to show the clear 
and noble outline of the head, but not so much 
as to disfigure. 

His action spoke to the eye what his words 
carried to the mind — not pantomime, but pre- 
sentative action; not vehement, but earnest; 
not of the forum, but of the pulpit. His voice 
was the clearest, the fullest, ringing without a 
particle of sharpness, filling the whole house, 
yet not drowning itself in its own reverbera- 
tions, but the very impersonation of sound 
which filled the whole house and was every- 
where present, but proceeded from nowhere. 
It descended on you as if from heaven. It was 
a voice I never heard equaled but by Mr. 
Clay's. Within a few days, after thirty years, 
I have had the privilege of having him under 
my roof and hearing him speak, and time has 
made no inroad on either his person or his 
voice. 

To have sat under him for four years is a 



CHAPTER II— 1833-1839 39 

great and rare privilege, which has not been 
among the least fruitful of my intellectual 
trainings. 

It may not be uninteresting to mention that 
during his visit to me lately he remarked that 
both Jefferson Davis and Robert Lee were at 
West Point during his chaplaincy; I said that 
was a serious impeachment of his ministry. 
He replied: ^^Hardly so in regard to Jefferson 
Davis, for he was so low in his classes that he 
never reached that section which was under 
my instruction." 

The current of college life was undisturbed 
by any great excitements. The threat of colli- 
sion between Ohio and Michigan on a question 
of boundary waked feeling enough to ruffle our 
calmness, but the United States beneficently 
thrust the sword between the combatants, gave 
Ohio the cause of war and indemnified Mich- 
igan with the vast peninsula which doubled 
her territory and wealth and took nothing 
from anybody, and we all smiled again. 

The contest between Van Buren and Har- 
rison was loud and angry enough to find an 
echo in our halls-premonitory of the struggle 
of 1840, which was closed by the rebellion. 
The students of higher grade were enlisted on 
either side rather by prejudice than knowl- 
edge; I am almost ashamed to confess that my 
lofty and impractical notions of what a Presi- 



40 HENRY WINTER DAVIS 

dent ought to be in point of capacity was near 
making me balance the weak incapacity of 
Harrison against my distrust of all Democrats 
— the only weakness of my life in that re- 
spect — and it was this first conflict of Harri- 
son and Van Buren which imprinted on my 
memory the growing disgust for Abolitionists 
which then began to take the place of old and 
universal sympathy for emancipation. 

But these were transitory ripples caused by 
the passage of the great storm. 

Amid it all I worked on at my metaphysics 
and morals, varied by a spell on the public 
roads of Ohio under its laws, and dreamed of 
the world without to the close of my career. 

On the 6th of September, 1837, at twenty 
years of age, I took my degree and diploma, 
decorated with one of the honorary orations 
of my class on the great day of Commence- 
ment. 

The world was all before me where to 
choose and Providence my guide. 

My father's death had embittered the last 
days of the year 1836 and left me without a 
counsellor. I knew something of books, but 
nothing of men, and I went forth like Adam 
among the wild beasts of the unknown wilder- 
ness of the world. 

My father had dedicated me to the minis- 



CHAPTER II— 1833-1839 41 

try, but the day was gone when such dedica- 
tions determined the life of young men. 

Theology as a grave topic of historic and 
metaphysical investigation I delighted to pur- 
sue, but for the ministry I had no calling. 

I would have been idle if I could, for I had 
no ambition, and my mother had deeply and 
often impressed on me the sentiment that a 
private Christian gentleman was the most dig- 
nified and independent character. 

But I had no fortune and I could not beg or 
starve. 

Under this irrational instigation, which I 
was long in getting rid of, I dedicated myself 
to the law. 

I returned to the East by way of Romney, 
met the first locomotive on the track at Win- 
chester, and behind it went to Charlestown, 
Jefferson county, Va., where I spent some days 
at the grand mansion of Bushrod Washington. 
I fear my scholastic airs made a singular con- 
trast with the habits of the landed gentry of 
that connection whom I there met, into whose 
talk of oxen and houses I was foolish enough 
not to enter, while I gloried in the fine man- 
sions and broad acres which inspired and sup- 
ported it as if the two things were separable. 

For all forms of mercantile pursuits I had 
no taste and great disgust. I was the subject 
of the prejudices of my State and time, and, 



42 HENRY WINTER DAVIS 

strange as it may seem now, it was then a pre- 
vailing sentiment in Maryland and Virginia 
that trade was not suited for a gentleman who 
could follow nothing but farming or one of 
the learned professions without something of 
disparagement. 

Great gains relaxed the rigor of the rule, 
but still it was the rule, and when in 1850 I 
came to Baltimore to reside, so enlightened a 
gentleman as Robert E. Scott, of Fauquier," 
once asked if the Baltimoreans were not all 
shopkeepers — if there were any aristocratic 
gentlemen there!! 

When I left college my father was dead, his 
estate deeply in debt, his negroes bound out 
to save them from sale till their labor could 
liberate them, and myself and my sister in the 
meantime in the most straitened circum- 
stances, which our aunt's kindness could only 
partially relieve. 

I sought a tutorship, and for two years ded- 
icated the time relieved from its drudgery to 
law and letters. 

With an eye on the University of Virginia, 
I read nearly its whole course, and refreshed 
myself with the pungent and fragrant pages of 
Tacitus "Histories" and the glowing and bril- 
liant, dignified and elevated epic of the De- 
cline and Fall of the Roman Empire. I exer- 
cised myself in translations from the former, 



CHAPTER II-1833-1839 43 

and in transferring the thoughts and images 
of passages of the latter into my own language. 
The latter task dispelled the popular error 
that Gibbon's style is swollen and declama- 
tory, for every effort at condensation proved a 
failure, and at the end of my labors the page 
I had been foolish enough to attempt to com- 
press had expanded to the eye when released 
from the weighty and stringent fetters in 
which the gigantic genius of Gibbons had 
bound the thought. 

The experiment was instructive and useful, 
though a failure. 

Under this pecuniary pressure the strength 
of my old-fashioned feelings towards slavery 
was subjected a severe shock. 

The sale of my share of the slaves would in- 
stantly have placed me in funds to pursue my 
studies at the University and borne me over 
the dead point of the machinery of the law at 
a beginning career. 

In reply to an offer of a connection of the 
family to purchase the slaves, my feelings 
were in April, 1839, expressed thus: 

''My Dear Aunt: I received a letter at 
last from the Doctor (Dr. Davis) several days 
since. He mentioned that Captain J. Allen 
stated that he would purchase Sally if I had 
no objection. I am not certain whether Sally 
was set to my share in the division made by 



44 HENRY WINTER DAVIS 

the Doctor and have not a list with me from 
which I can satisfy myself. I wish Jane would 
consult the memorandum she has, and if it 
should happen that Sally does belong to me, 
let me know. If she is the property of Jane, 
of course I shall make no objection in charac- 
ter of administrator even if it is within my 
power to do so. But if she is under my con- 
trol I will not consent to the sale, though he 
wishes to purchase her subject to the will" 
(i. e., to be free if she would go to Liberia). 

I have still, now lying before me a brief 
demonstration of the impossibility of heredi- 
tary slavery on any moral ground, written just 
before this letter in 1838, in the midst of Vir- 
ginia slaveholders, when a doubt was damna- 
tion, political and social! 

While waiting the opportunity of going to a 
law school I had a very advantageous offer 
from a gentleman in Mississippi, and I was 
about to accept it, but the final letters were de- 
layed and I remained in Virginia. It is singu- 
lar now to see from my letters, intimating a 
thought of going to Mississippi, what a cry of 
horror it extorted from my pious aunt, and it 
illustrates what is now almost inconceivable, 
what a sink of iniquity, what a broad road to 
destruction that region was then considered. 

Finally my aunt sold some land in 1839 and 
dedicated the funds to my legal studies. 



CHAPTER II— 1833-1839 45 

The relative advantages of private and uni- 
versity study were largely and anxiously de- 
bated in my letters, and I maintained the lat- 
ter with vigor and success. 

The superiority of the Virginia, the Massa- 
chusetts or the Connecticut school was then 
considered and decided — not so wisely — in fa- 
vor of the University of Virginia. 

Aided by my aunt's munificence, the same 
love which began my infantile education, 
which bore me through college and which so 
many of my most costly books still attest, I ar- 
rived at the University of Virginia in Octo- 
ber, 1839. 

NOTES ON CHAPTER II. 

I. Rt. Rev. Philander Chase (1775-1852), uncle of Chief Jus- 
tice 



Salmon P. Chase. 
Rt. Rev. Charles Pettit Mcllwaine (1798-1873). 
Benjamin Franklin Bache (1801-1881). 
Catharinus Putnam Buckingham (1808-1888). 
William Sparrow (1801-1874). 
Robert Eden Scott (1808-1862). 
The schools of Harvard and of Yale. 



46 HENRY WINTER DAVIS 



Chapter III. 

THE UNIVERSITY OF VIRGINIA 

(1839-40). 

The University of Virginia is divided into 
schools in each of which a separate diploma 
is awarded, but bound together by a common 
government into the University. Its schools 
did not in 1839 at all complete the cycle of 
sciences or departments of human learning. 
The Schools of the Greek, Latin, of the Mod- 
ern Languages, of Mathematics, of Physics or 
Natural Science, of Chemistry, of Law and of 
Moral Philosophy were, I believe, all that 
then existed. 

The Classical School was under a plodding 
pedant, Gesner Harrison;^ that of the Modern 
Languages under a polyglot German" smell- 
ing of assafoetida, who was shortly after my 
day expelled for whipping his wife, and his 
varied knowledge being united in no one, sev- 
eral professors dischargedhis functions. When 
some one complimented him on this tribute to 
his learning, he replied: ''Ah, yes, it takes a 
great many fips to make a thaler!" 

Under him I got a smattering of French 
and German, with a compound pronunciation 
of both. 



CHAPTER III— 1839-1840 47 

Professor Rogers^ gave a national charac- 
ter to the School of Natural Philosophy and 
Geology, and I enjoyed the privilege of at- 
tending and profiting by his eloquent and 
original lectures during the brief course. 

Professor Bonnycastle ^ raised the School of 
Mathematics to deserved celebrity and en- 
riched it by his contributions to mathematical 
investigation. 

Moral Philosophy was taught and made 
ridiculous by Professor Tucker,^ who stuck in 
the outer bark of English and Scotch Mental 
Philosophy, gave his students the vertigo by 
the narrow circle in which he revolved, and 
tried to enliven his disquisition by stale tradi- 
tionary jokes and stories, which descended 
from class to class and year to year like intel- 
lectual heirlooms of the school. 

His work on the Progress of the United 
States in Wealth and Population in fifty years 
is, however, a most valuable and meritorious 
summary of national progress and the first 
scientific effort to make statistics luminous in 
this country. 

Professor Davis ^ presided over the Law 
School — a most amiable and excellent gen- 
tleman, but one wholly without experience as 
a lawyer and wholly incompetent to deal with 
the high and abstract principles of judicial 
science. 



48 HENRY WINTER DAVIS 

His lectures were little besides readings on 
the Virginia Statutes and their construction 
by the Virginia Court of Appeals. He did 
attempt to illustrate the law of tenures as mod- 
ified by Virginia law, but the pamphlet was 
wholly unintelligible in theory and worthless 
in practice — the despair and agony of succes- 
sive generations of students — which, if not un- 
derstood, must be memorized at the peril of 
losing a diploma. 

The University Buildings consisted of a 
miniature of the Pantheon of Agrippa at the 
head of a broad lawn, on either side of which 
were two rows of dormitories, after the fash- 
ion of negro cabins, broken at regular inter- 
vals by the professors' houses, which rose 
above them — all of substantial brick and gen- 
erally kept in good order. 

The lecture room and library occupied the 
Pantheon, or rotunda. 

The genius of the institution looked down 
on it from Monticello — the Holy Mount — the 
residence of the founder of the University and 
the fountain of its inspiration, moral and po- 
litical. 

In striking contrast with Kenyon, here no 
sectarian, no religious bias or basis was recog- 
nized. 

The University employed no chaplain; no 



CHAPTER III— 1839-1840 49 

prayers opened the day; no service was en- 
acted on Sunday. 

Still the students employed and paid by vol- 
untary contributions a chaplain, who was 
chosen from year to year, in concurrence with 
the authorities, and the services were respect- 
ably and respectfully attended by the general 
mass of the students. The theory of Jefferson 
remained — the practice of a more believing 
age prevailed over it. 

But Jefferson's political ideas permeated 
the whole body of the students and infected 
the whole atmosphere of the slave States — not 
without an element of strong antagonism, but 
one never strong enough to throw off the moral 
malaria. 

It is among the singular anomalies of his- 
tory that the devotees of Jefferson's political 
theories of State's rights and constitutional 
construction were the most violent opponents 
of his views on slavery and the rights of man 
in the negro. 

I was soon sensible of a great difference be- 
tween the sentiment of the mass of the students 
and that of Maryland in my boyhood; per- 
haps my Ohio residence made me more sensi- 
tive to the slightest change of temperature. 

I remember being rather disgusted by the 
change from Maryland to Ohio — from the cul- 



50 HENRY WINTER DAVIS 

tivation and distinction of classes to the rough 
dead level of the West — and on my return I 
remember I was struck with a sort of revul- 
sion of feeling at the aspect of slavery which 
I certainly had not carried with me to the 
West. But with the great mass of students it 
was the natural, the only tolerable or possible 
state of the negro. It was not frequently the 
theme of discussion, though sometimes its re- 
lation to the principles of freedom were 
looked in the face, and then it was generally 
admitted to be at once irreconcilable and ir- 
redeemable. On this topic I still possess my 
own opinions in writing of that date. 

On the theories of the Constitution there 
was more discussion, and I had sat at the feet 
of Clay and Webster as the rest had of Jeffer- 
son and Calhoun; the war was waged fiercely 
during my year at the University. There was, 
however, then still a great body of dissenters 
from the Jeffersonian theories in the Univer- 
sity, as in the slave States — but always a mi- 
nority on the defensive and gradually driven 
to occupy or concede more and more of the 
ground of their adversaries — till finally their 
opposition was a protest without principle, 
and the admission was universal, either tacitly 
or expressly, that the slavery interest found its 
only secure bulwark in the supremacy of the 
States, the right of nullification or secession. 



CHAPTER III— 1839-1840 51 

or the denial or limitation of every attribute 
of sovereignty of the United States. 

But this logical and systematic result had 
not then been impressed on the Southern 
mind ; it was the dream of a few, and the drift 
was towards it, and it was involved remark- 
ably, but surely, in the general principles of 
State rights, which was everywhere taught 
and in one sense or another generally ac- 
cepted. 

I was always on the other side, as well in 
theory as in practice, and was vigorously de- 
nounced for a Federalist. 

Professor Davis was the preacher of Jeffer- 
sonianism, and certainly the Federalist — Our 
text-book on the Constitution was a sufficient- 
ly curious work, read by the light of the Jef- 
fersonian Commentator! Story was "suspect- 
ed" and ostracised. Webster's arguments were 
answered by the imputation of Federalism 
and the shrug of the shoulders. The Doc- 
trine was then expounded ex-cathedra — with 
a glance to the Holy Mount — and the young 
men went home sufficiently instructed to make 
the rebellion, for it is that generation of stu- 
dents who have prepared, organized and led 
the rebellion. R. M. T. Hunter and Seddon '^ 
had just left the University a year or two when 
I got there. Mr. Orr, of South Carolina, and 
Clay, of Alabama, were there during my year. 



52 HENRY WINTER DAVIS 

The tone and bearing of the students was 
high and manly; their cultivation was not 
equal to it. The sense of personal dignity and 
self-importance was developed in an exagger- 
ated degree. The duel was the only soap for 
tarnished honor. Every year supplied its ex- 
amples of wounded honor seeking a surgeon 
at Bladensburg or some other point in the 
proximity of Washington; the young gentle- 
men mysteriously vanished from sight, reap- 
peared beyond the ^^ Commonwealth^' and 
sought or accepted distinguished advice at the 
seat of the government. Arguments and views 
from distinguished lips were found more per- 
suasive after a long journey and in the neigh- 
borhood of the historic field of civil war, and 
after applications of emulgents, the scorned 
honor reappeared without a stain and the skin 
which held it without a scratch at the Uni- 
versity; and so the farce ended. 

The English education of most of the young 
men was always found to have been sadly neg- 
lected ; but, its existence being assumed as the 
condition of admission, scarcely any attention 
was paid to it at the University; and if the 
little examination in spelling and writing 
grammatically could be scraped through, 
nothing more was required and little more 
was likely to be attained. 

The examinations were very rigid, but no 



CHAPTER III— 1839-1840 53 

one was required to undergo them unless he 
aspired to a diploma, and then he must be 
very thorough or he failed. A considerable 
proportion took diplomas in one or more 
schools, but very few took the Diploma of the 
University, which required diplomas in per- 
haps five schools and a general examination 
on them all at the end. Those who took these 
grand diplomas were generally hard students 
of more industry than mind. There were some 
distinguished exceptions. But the habit was 
to select two or three schools, at the fancy of 
the student, and devote the stay at the Uni- 
versity to them. This gave the education a 
very partial and imperfect character and left 
the graduate with a narrow view of the field 
of knowledge and a very imperfectly devel- 
oped and ill-balanced mind. 

The literary societies were not well attend- 
ed or well sustained — at least not so well as at 
Kenyon. 

I acquired a little French and German, 
enough to perfect, after leaving the Universi- 
ty; attended Professor Rogers's lectures in ge- 
ology, which were very few and brief that 
term, and devoted my chief time to the crab- 
bed and jealous jade of the law. 

I have described, I think, justly the lectures 
of Professor Davis. 



54 HENRY WINTER DAVIS 

On International Law Vattel's amiable gen- 
eralities and shallow philanthropy was the 
text-book, for Wheaton's vigorous and historic 
work was of Northern origin and fit only to 
furnish the supplemental notes of the profes- 
sor. Kent was too Federal to be vise across 
the lines. Story, not orthodox on the Consti- 
tution, was unavoidable in Equity Jurispru- 
dence and acquiesced in. 

Stephens's scientific exposition of pleading 
was judiciously chosen and infinitely instruc- 
tive, but on a dead science, which every Legis- 
lature strove to bury rather than to revive, 
and on which every pratcising lawyer, after 
exhaling eulogies on its subtle refinements, 
united with the antagonist to declare worth- 
less by agreeing in stereotyped form in every 
cause ''to waive all error of pleading and al- 
low either party to give any evidence compe- 
tent under any form of pleading." Still the 
study of that beautiful work was admirably 
calculated to form the mind of a scientific 
lawyer, and I for long years have done it 
homage at the end of many a well-fought and 
successful struggle. 

The chief training of the school was found 
in the venerable but now obsolete volumes of 
Coke on Littleton, whence streamed that glad- 
some light of jurisprudence with which the 
old master of legal torture prophetically bids 



CHAPTER III— 1839-1840 55 

his disciples farewell at the end of his book 
and the beginning of his battle. 

The labor I devoted to mastering the invis- 
ible distinctions, to noting the endless diversi- 
ties of the recondite principles of the old law 
of real property, is now powerful even in the 
remembrance. 

Often in despair I have closed the book and 
sunk on my bed, wearied out with expositions 
I could scarcely grasp and whose application 
I could not see; sometimes I have thrown the 
book across the room in my wrath, and once 
my fellow-students attest having caught me 
kicking it over the jfloor in a moment of men- 
tal agony. Still I mastered it, and I think in 
that work I did penance for all legal sins of 
the future, and all work has since been easy. 
I have found myself since armed where others 
have been naked in the day of battle — familiar 
with matters which were mysteries to compet- 
itors who had not been instructed in its mys- 
teries, and able to explore my way over track- 
less wastes of controversy to a safe conclusion, 
where those who studied by the stars of ''mod- 
ern instances" were lost because they did not 
appear for many days. 

I set down Coke on Littleton with the hick- 
ory rod on my shoulders in my youth as the 
great instruments of whatever in law or learn- 
ing I have been — but instruments abhorrent to 



^6 HENRY WINTER DAVIS 

the humanity of modern homes and banished 
from school and college with the rack, and 
Thomas Acquinas of a barbarous age. 

Whereof let this little suffice the diligent 
reader. 

It is quite certain that Professor Davis was 
no light in that labyrinth! 

There was a moot court, in which I tried the 
edge of my logic on several occasions, but it 
hardly can be called part of the training of the 
University. 

Of society at the University there was little, 
except the students; and the professors consid- 
ered themselves responsible for one party to 
the class; they were always affable and polite, 
treating their students as gentlemen younger 
but not below them, and this conduct was met 
in the same spirit. A high tone of personal 
conduct prevailed. The exceptions were 
marked, but few, and punished by a singular 
want of consideration among the students who 
had a just public opinion of their own very 
free from the usual bias of antagonism to the 
authorities, which mitigates low conduct to 
mere rebellion against unjust oppression, 
whose ministers are the professors. Their dis- 
cipline was generally supported, because free 
and not petty, nor beyond what was necessary. 
There was little coarse dissipation; practical 
jokes were thought unbecoming; ladies' society 



CHAPTER III— 1839-1840 57 

was eagerly sought, and the neighborhood 
swarmed with that peculiar growth of all col- 
leges — antique unmarried maidens, at whose 
feet many generations of students have sighed, 
revived, been accepted and forgotten — with no 
lesion of the heart to either party — the one so 
often impressed that it has become elastic, the 
other under a southern sun melting to accept 
the image of the adored, and melting as easily 
before another flame to take the features of 
the successor. 

In May, 1840, was held at Charlottesville 
one of those Episcopal carnivals known as the 
Episcopal Convention of Virginia. 

In other dioceses the convention is a grave 
convocation of politic clergymen and laymen 
to pass canons, administer discipline and go 
home. 

In Virginia it was then a spiritual carnival, 
an ecclesiastical frolic, a religious revival and 
a time of great social and physical outpouring 
and refreshment. Prayers and preaching, 
dining and visiting, salutation and parting 
consume the days and nights. The early dawn 
sees long lines of worshipers streaming to 
the morning prayers and lectures in many 
churches. All denominations open their 
churches for the Episcopal clergy — who ac- 
cept, but never reciprocate the courtesy. Pul- 
pit orators from distant dioceses crowd to the 



58 HENRY WINTER DAVIS 

theater of doing good to souls — or themselves. 
Reputations are made or marred. Rich liv- 
ings follow a bold flight or a fervid appeal. 
Ladies and gentlemen, young and old, sit in 
judgment on the sermon of the day. Vast 
crov^ds gather from every part of the State, 
and not a few from distant States. All houses 
are open. Every lady competes for the privi- 
lege of entertaining an angel not unawares; 
and these angels of the churches think they 
are enjoying only their own. ''Is the Bishop 
putting up with you?" was once the innocent 
inquiry of a gentleman. "Oh, no," was the 
hostess' reply, "we are putting up with him." 
Surely there was no more venerable or vener- 
ated man than this Bishop, but the witty reply 
points the tale and paints the scene in the col- 
ors of the time. 

For weeks the ladies are devoted to house- 
wifely preparations for the feast, that there 
may be plenty and yet time to mingle the spir- 
itual with the social delights. 

Such is a faithful picture of the Convention 
of 1840 at Charlottesville, as it is fixed in my 
memory, of which glimpses float out in my 
letters of that date. Not a few names of note 
rise before me — some of promises not per- 
formed, some who sleep forever, some who 
still stir the world to flee from ruin to right- 
eousness. That great Bishop, Meade,^ born to 



CHAPTER III— 1839-1840 59 

rule men, lived to bow to the storm meaner 
m.en had raised to bless the rebellion in the 
name of God, and died in the hopeless strug- 
gle to prove by an appeal to the Lord of Hosts 
that slavery is a Christian institution. 

He presided over and inspired the conven- 
tion. 

When it was over I thus described to my 
sister its characters and impressions. 

'^This morning, after a week of bustle and 
confusion, prayer and dissipation, preaching 
and visiting, the American carnival closed and 
Charlottesville relapsed into its wonted dull- 
ness. 

^'The crowd that took the sacrament was 
immense; more than forty were confirmed; 
and Dr. Tyng,^ of Philadelphia, recalled by 
his eloquence, his action and the depth and 
beauty of his thoughts, the splendid efforts of 
Bishop Mcllvaine. 

^'Mr. Davis sent me your letter and request- 
ed me to call on him; I did not hear his ser- 
mon, but some one informed me that it was 
rather too learned for a sermon delivered be- 
fore a promiscuous audience. Mr. Slaughter^ 
preached once, and his effort was spoken of in 
the highest terms ; I was so unfortunate as to 
lose it. 

'^Dr. Keith ^^ has, unfortunately, deserted 
written for extempore sermons; but this mode 



6o HENRY WINTER DAVIS 

is not so efficient nor so interesting as the for- 
mer. His written discourses were remark- 
able for their ability and eloquence; his ex- 
tempore effusions possess more of animation, 
energy and feeling, but not enough to com- 
pensate for the loss or the sacrifice of pro- 
found reflections and beautiful style which 
so remarkably enriched the former. It is the 
child of his old age; he pets it till 'tis spoiled, 
then is too blind or too devoted to descry its 
faults. 

"Mr. Parks, ^^ an accession to the banner of 
Episcopacy from the ranks of the Methodists, 
has a vast reputation for wonderful eloquence, 
supported, however, by but a slender founda- 
tion; his delivery is devoid of grace; his ani- 
mation degenerates into violence; his voice 
has not yet lost the Methodistical whine — a 
whine that gradually increases till approach- 
ing termination of the sermon gives the sig- 
nal for a copious effusion of tears and chok- 
ing sobs, which, acting by sympathy on his 
audience, produce corresponding manifesta- 
tions of feeling equally gratuitous, uncalled 
for and ridiculous." 

This was the religious revel of the year; but 
the country was now agitated by the swelling 
tide of discontent which swept the Democrats 
from power and gave a treacherous promise 
of a change of policy. Harrison and Van 



CHAPTER III— 1839-1840 61 

Buren again contested the palm. The predic- 
tions of financial ruin which filled the last 
years of President Jackson had been fulfilled 
under President Van Buren; the Whig states- 
men were now the prophets of the country, 
and the victory in the fall of 1840 placed them 
in power — for a day. 

My first knowledge of political speaking is 
of this date. 

I heard with great delight Mr. William C. 
Rives/^ in the Court House at Charlottesville, 
vindicate his ''consistency" in Virginia 
phrase, impeached by his desertion of Mr. 
Van Buren and accession to the cause of Gen- 
eral Harrison. It was then the Virginia dog- 
ma that consistency in a public man was what 
chastity is to woman, and that consistency 
meant holding the same views and applying 
the same measures in every variety of circum- 
stances. 

Of the merits of the controversy it is not 
worth while to speak; the vindication was to 
me a novel experience in oratory. 

I stood in a window, holding myself up by 
the sash for four hours, for length and not 
brevity was the test of merit in Virginia, and 
every theme was deduced from the resolutions 
of '98. 

Mr. Rives spoke with wonderful energy — 
not violently, but with an intensity of gesture 



62 HENRY WINTER DAVIS 

and utterance, a simplicity of expression, an 
absence of rhetorical amplification and a di- 
rectness and practical plainness worthy of ail 
admiration, wholly different from the per- 
functory drawl which prevails in the pulpit, 
and equally different from fine pulpit oratory, 
with its well-rounded periods and elaborate 
imagery. It was a man in earnest, not over 
nice in his weapons, but bent on beating down 
his foe. Mr. Ritchie,^^ of the Richmond In- 
quirer, had impeached him of inconsistency, 
and he was on trial for his life. That paper 
w^as the Bible of all good Democrats; it bore 
the impress of the Jeffersonian era and ideas; 
its enmity was ruin; its suspicion was danger- 
ous. Mr. Rives' speech was an encounter with 
his paper; its editor he ''denounced'' as "alter- 
nately the lickspittle and the libeller of every 
public man of Virginia." This phrase sticks 
yet in my memory. 

But the Inquirer remained master of the 
field, and Mr. Rives never recovered his hold 
on the Virginians. 

I left the Court House impressed with i 
new idea of the contests of real life, debating 
in the Senate, and the fervid appeals which 
sway multitudes. 



CHAPTER III— 1839-1840 63 

NOTES ON CHAPTER III. 

1. Gessner Harrison (1807-1862). 

2. George Blaetterman vide Herbert B. Adams's Thomas 
Jefferson and the University of Virginia (page 160). 

3. William Barton Rogers (1804-1882). 

4. Charles Bonnycastle (1792-1840). 

5. George Tucker (1775-1861). 

6. John A. G. Davis (1801-1840). 

6a. Davis's chronology is not exact as to R. M. T, Hunter 
(1809-1887), who left the University before 1830. As United 
States Senator from Virginia, he framed the tariff of 1857. He was 
thought of for the Presidency of the Confederate States and was 
Secretary of State and Senator therein. James A. Seddon(i8i5- 
1880) graduated from the University of Virginia with the de- 
gree of B. L. in 1838, and was afterwards a member of the 
Congress and Secretary of War for the Confederacy. James L. 
Orr (1822-1873) graduated at the University in 1842. He was 
speaker of the Thirty-fifth Congress, and afterwards became a 
member of the Confederate Senate. After the close of the war 
he became a Republican, and when he died he was Minister to 
Russia. Clement C. Clay (1819-1882) graduated at the Uni- 
versity of Alabama in 1835, and completed his law studies at 
the University of Virginia in 1840. He was a member of the 
United States Senate, and afterwards of that of the Confederate 
States. 

7. Rt. Rev. William Meade (1789-1862). 

8. Rev. Stephen Higginson Tyng (1800-1885). 

9. Rev. Philip Slaughter (1808-1890). 

10. Rev. Revel Keith 1792-1842). 

11. Rev. Martin P. Parks, rector of Christ Church, Norfolk, 
where the Convention had met in 1839. He soon afterwards 
became chaplain of the U. S. Military Academy at West Point. 

12. William Cabell Rives (born 1795, died 1868). 

13. Thomas Ritchie (1778-1854). 



64 HENRY WINTER DAVIS 



Chapter IV. 

PRACTICE AT LAW IN ALEXAN- 
DRIA AND BALTIMORE 

(1840-55). 

After leaving the University of Virginia, 
Davis entered upon the practice of the law in 
Alexandria, Virginia. There ''his ability and 
industry attracted attention/ and before long 
he had acquired a respectable practice, which 
thenceforth protected him from all annoy- 
ances of a pecuniary nature. He toiled with 
unwearied assiduity, never appearing in the 
trial of a cause without the most elaborate and 
exhaustive preparation, and soon became 
known to his professional brethren as a valu- 
able ally and a formidable foe." 

He was tall, standing six feet in his stock- 
ings, had dark hazel eyes and curly brown 
hair, and wore a moustache on an otherwise 
clean-shaven face. On October 30, 1845, he 
married Miss Constance C. Gardiner, daugh- 
ter of William C. Gardiner, Esq.^ She is de- 
scribed as ''a most accomplished and charm- 
ing young lady, as beautiful and as fragile as 
a flower." She lived only a few years after 
their marriage, and grief over her loss may 
have been one of the causes which determined 
him to leave Alexandria. 



CHAPTER IV— 1840-1855 65 

While practising law at Alexandria in 1849 
he is said to have voted against the establish- 
ment of district free schools and to have con- 
tributed to the columns of the Alexandria 
Gazette for April 25 and May 3, letters signed 
^^Hampden," in which he opposed the election 
of a State's Right Whig to Congress and con- 
tended for the supremacy of Congress over 
the Territories, with a right to abolish slavery 
therein,^ He removed to Baltimore in the 
next year and acted as attorney for Rev. H. 
V. D. Johns in a difficulty he had with Bishop 
Whittingham, because Dr. Johns had offici- 
ated at a service in the Eutaw Street Meth- 
odist Episcopal Church.* Although through- 
out his life he was a member of the Protestant 
Episcopal Church, he showed his independ- 
ence of ecclesiastical action again, three years 
later, in the publication of a pamphlet attack- 
ing the bishops for acquitting Bishop George 
W. Doane, of New Jersey, from charges 
which had been preferred against him.^ 
Davis's friend Creswell ^ described him as a 
''man of faith," who "believed in Christ and 
his fellow-man." ''His implicit faith in God's 
eternal justice and his grand moral courage, 
imparted to him his proselyting zeal and gave 
him that amazing kindling power which en- 
abled him to light the fires of enthusiasm, 
whenever he touched the public mind." 



66 HENRY WINTER DAVIS 

'^His private life was spotless. His habits 
were regular and abstemious, and his practice 
in close conformity with the Episcopal church 
of which he was a member. He invariably 
attended divine service on Sunday, and con- 
fined himself for the remainder of the day to 
a course of religious reading." ^ 

He was scrupulously neat in his dress, and 
usually wore a red or a polka dot necktie. His 
social gifts soon brought him into friendship 
with other lawyers, and he formed one of the 
original members of the Friday Club, which 
met weekly on Friday, from 8 to 12 P. M., at 
the houses of its members. The club was 
formed by a brilliant group of lawyers in No- 
vember, 1852, and Davis often came over from 
Washington to the club's meetings while he 
was a member of Congress. The club was 
broken up on March 22, 1861,^ by the out- 
break of the Civil War. 

Aristocratic in his bearing, he knew how to 
win men by his commanding manner. The 
story is told ^ that after a political meeting 
Davis wrapped his cloak about him and went 
away without speaking to any one, and that 
on the next day a butcher in the market said 
that he intended to vote for Davis from that 
very reason. Yet in his arguments he sought 
to convince, not to drive, and in his eloquent 
sentences he displayed a wit that '^suggests the 



CHAPTER IV— 1840-1855 67 

play of a Damascus cimiter that flashes and 
scintillates as it sweeps the air." ^° His fear- 
lessness at the trial table is shown by the story 
that when Reverdy Johnson, the leader of the 
American bar, twitted him for taking notes, 
Davis, with a quick reference to Johnson's im- 
pressive voice, retorted: ''Yes, Mr. Johnson, 
but you will please remember that, unlike the 
lion in the play, I have something more to do 
than to roar." " 

At the Baltimore bar, Davis made a bril- 
liant career for himself and rapidly achieved 
success. ^^ He soon entered upon a political 
career and obtained such a reputation as a 
speaker, through his address to the Whig Na- 
tional Convention of 1852, that, when he was 
a candidate for election as a presidential elec- 
tor in that year, he was not only called on for 
such local occasions as a joint debate at Mar- 
ley Bridge, in Anne Arundel county,^^ but was 
even summoned to speak at a Scott meeting at 
Niagara Falls, where he occupied the plat- 
form with Horace Greeley and Robert C. 
Winthrop.^^ He had been a resident of Mary- 
land for only two years at that time, and 
showed his interest in the attitude of the Ro- 
man Catholic church by writing to John M. 
Clayton to inquire if it were true that nine 
Roman Catholic bishops had pledged them- 
selves to support Clay for the Presidency.^^ In 



68 HENRY WINTER DAVIS 

1852 he published his only book, 'The War 
of Ormuzd and Ahriman in the Nineteenth 
Century," ^^ the title page of which bore ap- 
propriately a quotation from Demosthenes. 
It is a young man's book, turgid and over- 
rhetorical, and yet contains passages of great 
power. Wide reading in both ancient and 
modern history and an earnest, fervid spirit 
are shown. The Crimean War had not as yet 
revealed the weakness of Russia, and to Davis 
that great empire was a menacing danger to 
the world. He would appeal to the people 
of the United States to resist its onslaught, ere 
there came a world-embracing, despotic em- 
pire. ^^ ^'Within the four score years of the 
life of man, two powers have grown from in- 
significance to be the arbiters of the world," 
Davis wrote. ''Each is the incarnation of one 
of the two great spirits — pure, absolute, un- 
checked, uncontrolled, unlimited — which have 
always striven and now still strive on the the- 
atre of nations for the mastery of mankind. 
These two spirits are liberty and despotism — 
the Ormuzd and Ahriman of the political 
world. Their purest emanations are the Re- 
public of America and the Empire of Russia." 
In other nations the principles of liberty and 
despotism are mingled, but "it is only in the 
Republic of America that the people, imbued 
with the spirit of liberty, are the recognized, 



CHAPTER IV— 1 840- 1 855 69 

uncontrolled, unquestioned, sovereign power. 
It is only in Russia that the emperor is met by 
the cheerful, unquestioning, submissive and 
the affectionate devotion of the people." An- 
ticipating the objections that the negro slaves 
were under despotic rule and that the Poles 
were discontented, Davis said that these facts 
were not important enough to be considered, 
and insisted that the United States had 
"thriven among the arts of peace and indus- 
try," while Russia "has gorged its greatness 
by the spoils of war and fruits of intrigue." ^^ 
In Davis's opinion, "in this age of the world, 
two principles of government divide mankind. 
The one theory, rejecting with contempt the 
shallow fiction of the social contract, and with 
indignation the impious arrogance of the 
'right divine,' traces the fundamental prin- 
ciples of civil society, in the nature and wants 
of man, written there by the finger of God 
and surrounded by feelings, tendencies and ca- 
pacities which, in their natural development, 
assume the shape and attributes of national 
existence under formal governments." He 
believed that "the purposes of civil society can " 
only be attained by the instrumentality of 
government, reducing to the forms of law the 
will of the nation and coercing submission 
from its individual members. The right to 
prescribe these laws and direct their execution 



70 HENRY WINTER DAVIS 

is sovereignty. That power in the State which 
holds that right in the last resort is the sov- 
ereign power. The persons who actually ap- 
ply and execute those laws are the officers and 
delegates of that sovereign power. Wherever 
that sovereignty resides, it must be absolutely 
uncontrollable and arbitrary." Such is Davis's 
political theory. ''The controversy of the age 
disputes the residence of that ultimate sover- 
eignty. We maintain that it resides in the 
mass of every nation. A majority has no in- 
herent rights; it is an artificial creation; it 
holds only a delegated power; it is only the 
instrument provided by the previously de- 
clared will of the nation for ascertaining its 
decision under given circumstances." '^ 

We can see the reasons why Davis was so 
ardent a Unionist as we read: 'Tt is the nation 
only which is sovereign. The mass of the na- 
tion is necessarily somewhat indefinite, but 
each case must be adjusted as it rises. One 
man could not be allowed to impede the will 
of all the rest, nor would a majority of one be 
any ground, except for the provisions of posi- 
tive law, for the control of the other half of 
society. It is the duty of mere fragments of 
the nation to yield their opposition to the gen- 
eral will." '° 

''The despots of Europe," on the other hand, 
"deny any participation in the attributes of 



CHAPTER IV— 1840-1855 71 

sovereign power to the nation; they arrogate 
them absolutely to the crown. Kings are the 
plenipotentiaries of God, who imparts to them 
the absolute power of sovereignty. In his 
name, they rule with absolute sway his sub- 
jects; they are responsible — not to the people, 
not to the nation — but to God, the source and 
giver of their power." ^'The scourge of a 
merciless ruler" may ^^be a misfortune to a 
nation," but it has no right to demand a 
change. The '^responsibility of an ambassa- 
dor is to his sovereign," and the ''only right of 
the subject is prayer to God for relief, or for 
vengeance, or for patience." ^^ 

The author next discussed European history 
since the downfall of Napoleon, believing that 
the "Holy Alliance was a scandalous conspir- 
acy against the liberties of mankind." He 
traced the story through the conferences of 
Laybach and Verona; the crushing of the con- 
stitutional movements in Spain, Naples and 
Poland; the downfall of the Bourbons in 
France; the revolt of Europe in 1848 against 
the "holy conspirators" and the recent over- 
throw of Kossuth in Hungary. His ardent 
imagination saw a dictatorship of Russia on 
the Continent of Europe and believed that the 
American Republic should ally itself with 
England and face the prospect of the last war 
of freedom and despotism. "The crown of 



72 HENRY WINTER DAVIS 

Hungary was for centuries elective," Davis 
wrote, ^'as were all the other crowns of Eu- 
rope, that now forget their lowly origin in 
their lofty claims to the right divine. The 
mists which have hung around the morning 
of history have always been the refuge of 
royal pride to conceal the nakedness of its 
birth. It has ever aspired to draw its title to 
rule from the gift of God, rather than the 
will of man, and the illusion of historic per- 
spective which blends the heavens and the 
earth in the distance of the dim horizon has 
served to veil the fiction of a divine diploma 
for usurpations which time has half covered 
with the hoary emblems of right. The pesti- 
lent delusion has hitherto proved ineradica- 
ble, save by the sword or by the ax." ^ 

He held that from the Czar there was more 
danger to the world of an universal empire 
than there had been from Charles V, Louis 
XIV, or Napoleon; that the dictatorship of 
Russia in Europe is absolutely inconsistent 
with the experience of the English monarchy 
and the American Republic as free, popular, 
representative governments." The only alter- 
natives before us are ''a war in Europe, now 
with allies," or war hereafter, on our own soil, 
without allies.^^ WithNapoleonlll in France, 
there was no hope to the cause of liberty there, 
and no other continental power was ''able to 



CHAPTER IV— 1 840- 1 855 73 

stay the march of Russia to universal empire." 
The Czar is ''not only the arbiter of Chris- 
tian Europe, but also the master of Moham- 
medan Europe," and thus controlled the an- 
swer to the two great problems of Europe in 
the nineteenth century — the fates of the Otto- 
man Empire and of free principles. So long, 
however, ''as England exists, resplendent in 
all the glories of liberty, despotism can find 
no safe and quiet abode on the Continent of 
Europe." ^^ 

History, in ancient times, showed what the 
danger was. "The Grecian genius has left 
the model of liberty for the inspiration of fu- 
ture ages. It has also left the plan by which 
it may be encountered and destroyed. Every 
usurpation of a later day, efifected by anything 
but barbarous force, has been a coarse and 
distant imitation of the classic art, with which 
Philip subjugated the fierce and turbulent 
democracy of Greece. The rise of the Rus- 
sian Empire and its march to the control of 
Europe is the closest imitation history fur- 
nishes of the great model. Europe awaits her 
Chsronea." '' 

In the United States, the "North is filled 
with the fanatics of liberty, as the South is 
with the Quixotes of slavery." Where there 
IS compromise, it is because the balance is 
turned by a small minority of moderate men. 



74 HENRY WINTER DAVIS 

^'The Compromise Bills of 1850 have not laid 
the infernal spirit of sectional agitation. The 
day of final collision is adjourned; it is not 
gotten rid of. Emancipation, or disunion, 
may be the only alternatives. The eagle eye 
of Russia will not fail to mark such oppor- 
tunity." Mexico may ally herself with Rus 
sia, which, on ''the west coast, is an American 
power, nearer our possessions than we are." 
It is true that Washington warned us against 
entangling alliances, but an English alliance 
now comes under the exception he made of 
''temporary alliances for extraordinary occa- 
sions," and the instructions he gave Jay, as to 
an armed neutrality, hinted at the possibility 
of an alliance with other nations to support 
our principles. The other great principle of 
our foreign policy, the Monroe doctrine, also 
was "the formal adoption of the policy" which 
Davis advocated, for "Russia now invades, or 
seriously threatens our rights," and J. Q. Ad- 
ams, in his Panama message, "declared that, 
in our sphere, and in our day, and according 
to our measure, and as far as is complete with 
our safety, we are on the side of liberty, not 
merely in word, but in deed." 

In 1853 Davis delivered the closing address 
before the Maryland Institute, an eloquent 
and scholarly oration, which was published 
in pamphlet form. He told his hearers in 



CHAPTER IV— 1840-1855 75 

glowing sentences, ''the history of labor is the 
oldest and will be the last of all histories.'' 
It begins with the fall of man — it will end 
only with his race. It antedates the ruler 
and the priest, and it will survive or cease 
with them." 

''God inflicted labor as a penalty. His mer- 
cy softens it into a blessing. The pride of man 
has perverted it into a disgrace." 

^'Industry, in its widest acceptation, em- 
braces every active exercise of the powers of 
mind or body for the production of any use- 
ful object or result. The subjects of industry 
are the same in every age — some exercising 
the higher and other the lower faculties, some 
level to the capacity of all, others attainable 
only by the few, but all intended to be pur- 
sued for the comfort and elevation of man in 
this his lower abode. In the eye of God, all 
are honorable, for He made the faculties of 
man to be exercised, not to be idle. In the 
eyes of the primitive patriarchal society, all 
occupations were honorable, for all were the 
offspring of some of the faculties of man. But, 
from that day to this, pride and power have 
sought to elevate themselves on the shoulders 
of the multitude and, to mark the distinction, 
they have stamped the pursuits of the multi- 
tude with contempt. The favored pursuits 
have varied in different ages, but the relation 



76 HENRY WINTER DAVIS 

between them and others has ever been that of 
the honorable and the despised." He consid- 
ered the history of Greece, Rome and the 
Middle Ages, and noted that the Americans 
had succeeded in agriculture, mechanics and 
commerce; but had not as yet excelled in 
science, the fine arts or literature. Political 
economy had treated of wealth, not man, but 
now the beginnings of social legislation were 
found in England. Socialism is urged by 
some. ^'As a whole," when examined, ''it can 
never be adopted, as no theory has at any time 
been adopted by men for the reconstruction of 
society, but it will furnish new and fertile 
suggestions. It is penetrated with a moral 
idea which is mighty for the elevation of the 
w^orking classes." This early recognition of 
the importance of socialism is notable. 

After praising the Odd Fellows, he takes 
up subjects of local interest — the tobacco 
warehouses, the public schools, the laws con- 
cerning shipping, the limitation of hours of 
labor, government banks, a public chemist, 
and a State geological survey. Finally, he 
said: "It is the proud peculiarity of this Re- 
public that labor is honorable in all. It has 
been so from the beginning; it will so continue 
to the end of the Republic. It is a product of 
our free and equal condition; it is the essential 
guardian of that condition. It has been so 



CHAPTER IV— 1 840- 1 855 77 

from the condition of the emigrant fathers, 
from the condition of the country they sub- 
dued, from the age of the world in which they 
h'ved, from the religious ideas which imbued 
them, from the political institutions which 
spring from those ideas and in return fostered 
them by their protection. American Repub- 
licanism does not look on labor as a necessity; 
it imposes it as a duty, and, therefore, it is 
honorable in all, and idleness is not honorable 
in any. Yet we are least of all people guilty 
of the folly of leveling all pursuits. We do 
not honor less the smaller; we only honor 
the greater triumph more." 

During these years of practice at the bar 
Davis did not neglect the study of languages 
and literature. His friend CreswelP^ said 
that ^^his habit was not only to read, but to 
re-read the best of his books frequently, and 
he was continually supplying himself with 
better editions of his favorites. In current 
playful conversation with his friends he quot- 
ed right and left, in brief and at length, from 
the classics, ancient and modern, and from the 
drama, tragic and comic. He was the best 
scholar I ever met, for his years and active 
life, and was surpassed by very few, except- 
ing mere bookworms." As a result of the 
training of these years, Davis entered public 
life ^'possessed of a mind of remarkable 



78 HENRY WINTER DAVIS 

power, scope and activity; with an immense 
fund of precious information, ready to re- 
spond to any call he might make upon it, how- 
ever sudden; wielding a system of logic 
formed in the severest school and tried by long 
practice; gifted with a rare command of lan- 
guage and an eloquence well-nigh superhu- 
man, and withal graced with manners the 
most accomplished and refined, and a person 
unusually handsome, graceful and attractive." 

NOTES ON CHAPTER IV. 

1. Creswell, Speeches and Addresses, XIX. 

2. Creswell, Speeches and Addresses, XX . 

3. Vide 'Tortrait of Henry Winter Davis, Esq., by his own 
hand, and "A Review of Mr. Davis and Free Soilism." In 1855 
he is said to have claimed that these letters were his contribu- 
tions toward maintaining the peace of the country against se- 
cessionists. 

4. H. W. Scott's "Great American Lawyers." A slight 
sketch of Davis, with portrait, occupies pages 283-290. 

5. This pamphlet, which caused Davis's opponents in 1855 
to taunt him as a "lawyer with pompous pretensions to the 
character of a theologian," is entitled "A Epistle Congratulatory 
to the Bishops of the Episcopal Court at Canada by Ulric von 
Hutten, New York, 1853, page 74, and is dated on the Feast of 
Alcantara." 

6. Speeches and Addresses, XXIX — John A. J. Creswell, 
(i828-i89i)was a member of the Thirty-eighth Congress, United 
States Senator from Maryland from 1865 to 1867, Postmaster- 
General 1869-1874, and member of the Alabama Claims Com- 
mission 1874-1876. 

7. Speeches and Addresses, XXXIII. 

8. Capt. Henry P. Goddard, in an informing article on 
Davis, which appeared in the Baltimore Sunday Herald of 



CHAPTER IV— 1 840-1 855 79 

March 8, 1903, on the authority of William F. Frick, Esq., at 
that time the last survivor of the Club, names as the members 
of the Club, in addition to Messrs. Frick and Davis: Severn 
Teackle Wallis, Judge George William Brown, C. H. Pitts, 
Thomas Donaldson and F. W. Brune. 

9. By Isaac Brooks to Capt. H. P. Goddard, and repeated in 
the Baltimore Sunday Herald of March 8, 1903. 

10. Capt. H. P. Goddard, in the Baltimore Sunday Herald 
of March 8, 1903. 

11. Steiner's Johnson, 4. Curiously, the only comment I have 
found by Johnson upon Davis is a reference in a speech made 
in the Senate in 1866 to him as "eminent as a lawyer, as well 
as a politician, and, in my judgment, more often wrong in the 
latter capacity than he was in the former." (Steiner's Johnson, 
I39-) 

12. 10 Cent. L. J., 106, speaks of his boldness. 

13. "Portrait of Davis by his own hand." 

14. Rhodes, U. S. vol. I, 270. 

15. Clayton Papers, in Library of Congress. 

16. Printed in Baltimore, it is an octavo of 450 pages. 

17. On the title page he placed the quotation: 

"Litora litoribus contraria, fiuctibus undas, 
Imprecor, arma armis, pugnent ipsique nepotesque." 

18. Page 12. 

19. Page 23. 

20. Page 25. 

21. Page 26. 

22. Page 218. 

23. Page 276. 

24. Page 327. 

25. Page 333. 

26. Speeches and Addresses. XXII. 



8o HENRY WINTER DAVIS 

Chapter V. 
THE THIRTY-THIRD CONGRESS 

(i8ss-S7)- 

The rapid influx of immigrants, after the 
potato famine in Ireland and the failure of 
the revolutionary movements in Germany, 
alarmed many persons in the United States 
and led to the formation of the Know Noth- 
ing, or Native American party. Maryland 
had always shown nativist leanings and was a 
conservative State, in which the Whigs had 
been strong. When that party broke up, its 
members feared the anti-slavery proclivities 
of the Republican party and coalesced with 
the Americans, giving the union such strength 
that in 1856 Maryland was the only State to 
cast her vote for Fillmore, the Whig and 
American candidate. When Davis was in 
Europe, in the summer^ of 1854, the Ameri- 
can party was organized in Baltimore, and 
that autumn it carried the city in a quiet elec- 
tion. With many another Whig, Davis joined 
the Know Nothings and took a prominent part 
in the party councils. He wrote a pamphlet, 
defending its position, which pamphlet was 
published under the title of ^'The Origin, 
Principles and Purposes of the American 
Party," and defined that party as ''the associa- 



CHAPTER V— 1855-1857 81 

tion of American Republicans to vindicate 
the fundamental principles of the Republic, 
sacrificed by worn-out parties to personal and 
factional ambition." This '^revolt, veiled in 
secresy," was opposed by '^fanatics of freedom 
and fanatics of slavery, disorganizers and dis- 
unionists both." The party's platform in- 
cluded the exclusion of religion from political 
influence, freedom of schools from sectarian- 
ism, and the protection of the "purity of elec- 
tions against the influence of venal, foreign 
immigrants." The old issues were dead. The 
people support the tariff of 1846. The strug- 
gle as to implied power had ended in a com- 
promise. The bank and internal improve- 
ments are no longer issues. The people revolt 
against parties. The Nebraska and the Home- 
stead bills are to be opposed. ''American Re- 
publicans alone are entitled to rule the Amer- 
ican Republic. The great mass of European 
emigrants are unfit recipients of American 
citizenship, without a longer and more thor- 
ough probation." Too many of the enslaved 
millions were coming to our shores. ''By our 
American law, office is the right of no one. It 
is not a property, but a trust. No person, 
but one of American birth, shall be trusted 
with American affairs." The State should be 
neutral in religion, avoiding Mormon and 
Papist influence. The Roman Catholics in 



82 HENRY WINTER DAVIS 

Maryland had deserted the Whig party to 
vote for Lowe, the successful Democratic can- 
didate for Governor, because he was one of 
their faith. American Roman Catholics, how- 
ever, ^Vith American principles in their bos- 
oms, are not to be confounded with the Ultra- 
montanes in Europe. The Federal Consti- 
tution makes the Union neutral as to slavery 
in the States, and the new party tolerated no 
agitation of that ^4ocal subject" They sup- 
ported the fugitive slave law, and did not fa- 
vor the repeal of the Kansas bill ; ^'for, to open 
the question, renews the terrible collision of 
opposing passions." Kansas may decide as to 
the establishment of slavery in its first State 
Constitution. The veto power of the Presi- 
dent is feared, as he forms no part of the Leg- 
islature and should not influence the nature of 
the laws, but should veto those acts only which 
appear to him unconstitutional. The new 
party recognized ^'no absolute or ultimate sov- 
ereignty anywhere, but in the mass of the peo- 
ple of every country." The party's foreign 
policy was one of "peace and avoidance of en- 
tanglement," though the existence of Euro- 
pean colonies on our Southern borders was 
viewed with disgust. 

Davis's political activity led to his nomina- 
tion and election to Congress in the autumn of 
1855. H^is previous career and his speech at 



CHAPTER V— 1855-1857 83 

the Assembly Rooms, on Hanover street, when 
he accepted the nomination, were bitterly at- 
tacked during the campaign in a series of 
pamphlets. He was elected by a vote of 7,988, 
as against 7,493 for his opponent, Henry May. 
Nine years later ^ Davis told the House of 
Representatives that this election was the 
''first open struggle for power between the 
Know Nothings and the Democrats, who'' or- 
ganized banded bodies of armed ruffians and 
bullies, who at nearly every poll in the City of 
Baltimore, at the municipal elections, made 
deliberate assaults on the people there assem- 
bled and numbers of persons were wounded. 
They carried by a small vote that election. In 
the two weeks before the Congressional elec- 
tion, the ''young mechanics of Baltimore, the 
heart and sinew of the Republic, and without 
whom the nation would be nothing," organ- 
ized themselves with arms and said: "We will 
vote, if it is to be a vote, and fight, if it is to be 
a fight." Again the Irish and Democrats, 
"armed with United States weapons, took the 
offensive, but failed at the polls, and the re- 
sult was that we carried the day by a small 
majority on a very full vote, and nobody was 
fool enough to come here, after having ap- 
pealed to arms as well as votes, and been de- 
feated, and attempt to impeach the election." 
Davis was sworn in as a member of the 



84 HENRY WINTER DAVIS 

Thirty-fifth Congress on December 3, 1855, 
and found the House beginning a long strug- 
gle for the Speakership. No party had a ma- 
jority in the House, and no two parties would 
unite. Davis's prominence is shown by the 
fact that he received occasional votes for the 
office of Speaker, although a new member.^ 
He voted with his associate from Baltimore, 
J. Morrison Harris,^''' for various Know Noth- 
ings.^ As the long struggle dragged on, Zol- 
licoffer,^^ of Tennessee, moved, on January 11, 
1856, that it be considered the duty of all can- 
didates fully to state their opinions on impor- 
tant public problems. Davis concurred in this 
view and made his first speech, in which he 
maintained that the American candidate, Ful- 
ler,^^ had answered '^a series of sharp and 
pressing interrogatories," and the other candi- 
dates — Richardson ^"^ for the Democrats, and 
Banks ^^ for the Republicans — should do the 
same. Yet these men had refused to say how 
they would organize the committees if elected. 
Davis 'Vould vote for any gentleman into 
whose hands I believe the interests, the dig- 
nity and the honor of the country would be 
safe." He continued to vote for Fuller until 
the end, opposing on February i an election 
by plurality. On the next day, when Banks 
was elected Speaker over Aiken, ^^ for whom 
the Democrats then voted, Davis and Cullen/* 



CHAPTER V— 1855-1857 85 

of Delaware, were the only representatives 
from slave States who did not vote for Aiken.^ 
Although Davis thus showed that he was not 
in complete sympathy with the South, even he 
voted against the expulsion of Preston Brooks 
for assaulting Sumner, and withheld his vote 
as to the censure of Keith/ When the com- 
mittee appointments were announced, Davis 
was placed on the Ways and Means Commit- 
tee, and continued as a member thereof until 
1861. He sprang into prominence in March 
by his speeches on the Kansas election. On 
March 12 ^ he made the first of those orations 
which led James G. Blaine, then the young 
editor of the Kennebec Journal, in Augusta, 
Maine, to write ^ that ''Davis is the most elo- 
quent and promising member of his party in 
the House," and to entertain for Davis an ad- 
miration which did not lessen with the years. 

When the Committee on Elections asked 
authority to send for persons and papers to 
investigate alleged violations of peace in Kan- 
sas, Davis made ''observations on the ques- 
tion," saying that "with criminations and re- 
criminations of adverse partisans I do not 
meddle." He would have favored action look- 
ing toward the impeachment of Governor 
Reeder, or a general investigation of malad- 
ministration in Kansas. The people of Mary- 
land had "no tender susceptibilities connected 



86 HENRY WINTER DAVIS 

with this subject, and have neither formed 
emigrant aid societies, nor invaded a Terri- 
tory." '^Resting, as Maryland does, centrally 
between tw^o sections of this country, honestly 
and devotedly bound up in the Constitution 
of this country, she is ready, freely and fairly, 
to investigate grievances alleged either by the 
North or by the South in respect to any Ter- 
ritory, how far soever it be toward the setting 
sun." He feared no ^'grave civil complica- 
tions from the organization" of Kansas, and 
thought the cloud was ''a wind cloud — bois- 
terous, disturbing, casting the dust in men's 
eyes, but not charged with any lightning likely 
to strike any one of the towers of the Republic 
and having none of the portentious stillness 
which marks the coming earthquake which 
can shake its foundations." The Elections 
Committee differed as to whether evidence 
should be taken by calling witnesses before the 
committee, or whether a commission should 
be sent to Kansas to take evidence; but Davis 
said that the real point was, whether there 
were facts which can weigh a feather in this 
matter. There was no foundation for an in- 
vestigation by parol testimony. The Demo- 
crats wrongly argued that no court could in- 
quire into the legality of the organization of 
the Kansas Legislature which passed the Act 
under which Whitfield claimed the election to 



CHAPTER V— 1855-1857 87 

a seat in the House, and that, therefore, the 
House itself could make no such inquiry. 
''The constitution of .the Legislature is a thing 
that never has been and never can, properly, 
be a matter of judicial investigation," for ''all 
judicial functions proceed upon the assump- 
tion that there is a Legislature in existence." 
An election to a seat in the House "lies within 
the circle of the political functions of the 
State," and "must be decided, before any ques 
tion can be decided by the judiciary." "The 
very existence of the government," Davis con- 
tinued, "rests upon the postulate that, for 
every difiPerence about political conduct, there 
is a final arbiter, whose decision is absolute, 
binding on everybody and all questions." We 
must, then, go to the law and see where the 
right to decide this question is vested, both in 
case of an ordinary election and of a revolu- 
tion. The "extent of violence and mode of 
fraud" do not change matters. "There is no 
gentleman in this House for whom illegal 
votes were not cast. There has been no Leg- 
islature elected in our history where there has 
not been more or less violence at the polls." 
By the Kansas-Nebraska Act the whole con- 
trol of the election was delegated to the Gov- 
ernor, and, therefore, the Legislature ap- 
proved by him was a valid one. In deciding 
between two rival Territorial governments, 



88 HENRY WINTER DAVIS 

the House must go ''behind the law, to the 
authority which the body has assumed to pass 
the law. We are in search, not of the law, 
but of the foundation of the law. The Presi- 
dent must determine exclusively. Upon his 
judgment — sandy as the foundation may be, 
aghast as we may stand at the frail vessel in 
which this awful power is now deposited — 
rests the sanction of every power, the authority 
of every law, the enforcement of every pre- 
cept, and everything which rescues that Ter- 
ritory from the control of the Indian and con- 
verts it into the domain of civil society." 
Pierce had acted. The House can not inquire 
collaterally into the validity of the territorial 
laws of Kansas. Kansas has been invaded 
from both North and South, and Davis must 
support the President, since the people of 
Kansas ''were wanting to themselves in not 
meeting armed intrusion by armed resist- 
ance." '' 

At the evening session of the House on Au- 
gust 7, 1856, when it was in committee of the 
whole on the state of the Union,^^ Davis deliv- 
ered an eloquent address upon the coming 
Presidential election. Fillmore had been 
nominated by the remnant of the Whigs and 
by the Americans, and Davis earnestly advo- 
cated his election as a national candidate over 
Fremont and Buchanan, who had been nomi- 



CHAPTER V— 1855-1857 89 

nated by the Republican and Democratic par- 
ties, respectively. Davis regarded both of 
these parties as sectional ones, and in sentences 
replete with his knowledge of Shakespeare 
and the Bible, with allusions to classic mythol- 
ogy, ancient history, and Cooper's novels, he 
urged that neither of them should be given 
the victory. His dramatic power was clearly 
shown in this speech, and its hot sentences still 
thrill the reader. He maintained that '^the 
Democratic party rests itself on its boasted 
and self-arrogated privilege of supporting and 
sustaining the peculiar institution of the 
South. Its strength, and its whole strength, 
consists in its assertion that it alone is the de- 
fender of Southern rights. It is, therefore, 
dangerous for anything to arise within the 
limits of the South and claim a hearing from 
the Southern people, which touches more 
nearly the rights of the people, and appeals to 
the more elevated and noble sentiments of de- 
votion to the Constitution and the Union. The 
gentlemen of the Republican party of the 
North aspire to represent that sentiment 
which is likewise local and peculiarly confined 
to the boundary of the North, and having no 
power beyond it. They are strictly sectional 
parties, tending to bring into collision hostile 
opinions, feelings and interests concentrated 
without mixture at the opposite poles of the 



90 HENRY WINTER DAVIS 

country — each intensified, like opposite elec- 
tricities, by the intensity of the other, and 
threatening, if brought into contact, an ex- 
plosion that may shake the foundations of the 
Republic." On the other hand, the American 
party is national, and Fillmore's ^'truth to the 
Union is made the reason why Southern gen- 
tlemen, for whom he ran the greatest risk 
against the opinion of his own region of the 
country, are to turn against him." The North 
has not been guilty of any act of State Legisla- 
ture or Governor, 'Vhich, in the slightest de- 
gree, has sullied the honor or injured the in- 
terest of the South." "There is hostility at 
the North," but it is toward the Democratic 
party, who vainly are claiming that the South 
is the object of this hostility. At the last 
Congressional election, a "stubborn resolution" 
was manifested at the North. "No event had 
since transpired to show that the Democrats 
had even a plurality of the votes in any State 
north of Mason and Dixon's Line. The causes 
of this hostility were" the repeal of the Mis- 
souri Compromise, the enactment of the Kan- 
sas-Nebraska Act, and the outrages in the Ter- 
ritory of Kansas, denied or defended by the 
Democrats. As late as 1845, in the Texas 
resolution, the Democrats had recognized the 
Missouri Compromise, and Buchanan had 
voted for that resolution. The compromise of 



CHAPTER V— 1855-1857 91 

1850 brought peace for a time and the decline 
of the Abolitionists. That compromise was 
due to the efforts of Fillmore, 'heading the 
conservative men of all parties." Then came 
the Kansas-Nebraska bill, '^an invitation for 
all the elements of strife to concentrate in 
Kansas," and Pierce made the conditions there 
w^orse by sending an incompetent Governor ^^ 
into the Territory. The Northern people will 
not vote for the Democratic nominees because 
''they have blazoned on their banner the very 
words of the ambiguous oracle" of the Kan- 
sas-Nebraska Act, '^plainly and in bloody let- 
ters, interpreted on the field of Kansas." 

Davis spoke "for the Constitution and the 
Union," and was ''pleading for the great 
rights of American citizens" and "for the 
honor and integrity of the American govern- 
ment." He and his fellows of the American 
party had been attacked bitterly by the Demo- 
crats, and now the attempt was made to force 
them to vote for the Democratic candidate 
"because of our connection with the South." 
"So paramount do they regard the allegiance 
to the sectional candidate, that they ask us to 
sacrifice our personal preferences, our politi- 
cal connections, our outraged dignity, for 
their triumph." He refused to do this. "The 
repudiation of the Democratic party is the 
first condition and best security for peace and 



92 HENRY WINTER DAVIS 

safety. It silences the plea of revenge and 
retaliation. The people of the South owe it 
to themselves and to their future as complete- 
ly to discard the Democrats as the people of the 
North have withdraw^n from them their confi- 
dence." The threat of secession had been 
made, in case of Fremont's election, and Davis 
considered it ''portentous to hear the mem- 
bers of a party contesting for the Presidency 
menace dissolution and revolution as the pen- 
alty they will inflict on the victor for defeat- 
ing them. People who do not hold the Union 
worth four years' deprivation of office are 
scarcely safe depositories of its powers." He 
felt convinced that the Union would not be 
dissolved, "until some party bent upon acquir- 
ing party power" shall ''exasperate, beyond 
the reach of reason. Northern and Southern 
minds, as my Southern friends have now exas- 
perated the Northern minds. It would be an 
act of suicide, and sane men do not commit 
suicide. The act itself is insanity. It will be 
done, if ever, in a tempest of fury and mad- 
ness which cannot stop to reason. Dissolution 
means death — the suicide of liberty without 
the hope of resurrection." The division of 
territory of the Republic would leave a "sharp 
and jagged chasm, rending the hearts of great 
Commonwealths, lacerated and smeared with 
fraternal blood." 



CHAPTER V— 1855-1857 93 

However the election may result, Maryland 
''knows but one country, and that the Union. 
Her glory is in it; her rights are bound up in 
it. Her children shed their blood for it, and 
they will do it again. Beyond it, she knows 
nothing. She does not reckon whether there 
is more advantage in the Union to the North 
or to the South; she does not calculate its 
value; nor does she cast up an account of 
profit and loss on the blood of her children." 
Because Fillmore ''knows not where the South 
ends or the North begins," Davis would fol- 
low him and summon all men to join him, in 
the name of the Union Fillmore saved in 1850. 

Late in the session (August 13), when Pen- 
nington,^^* of New Jersey, moved that no 
money appropriated for Kansas be paid until 
every person charged with treason in connec- 
tion with the Topeka Constitution, be released 
from confinement, and Grow,^^^ of Pennsyl- 
vania, argued that no prosecution of such per- 
sons ought to be begun, Davis said that he felt 
that the prosecutions ought not to proceed, 
that a charge of constructive treason is a scan- 
dal, and that the House had the right to arrest 
appropriations in the case of revolutionary 
necessity. That point had not yet been 
reached, and Pennington's proposal was, 
therefore, not proper, but childish. The Ad- 
ministration had tried the country till it was 



94 HENRY WINTER DAVIS 

at the verge of civil war, and is now seemingly 
about to set free the victims of months of im- 
prisonment. The '^pressure of the Presiden- 
tial contest, the necessity of party power, have 
driven the Administration to arrest a course 
of misrule, which they have hitherto denied 
to be misrule, which the ambition of party 
power initiated, but which now threatened 
those who began it." These prosecutions fur- 
nish ground for impeachment, their continu- 
ance is a "grave offence," their ''final dismis- 
sion is a confession of the original error." 

National politics again appeared in discuss- 
ing the question of suffrage ^^ in the City of 
Washington, when Davis defended the pro- 
posal that, after naturalization, a foreigner 
should wait for a year to obtain voting privi- 
leges, as a person did who moves to that city 
from another State. When he has resided ''as a 
citizen for a year" in the city and has had his 
attention directed to the "municipal con- 
cerns," when he is "under the influence of 
those obligations of citizenship," then he may 
"vote wisely upon the rights and interests of 
citizens around him." The "practical opera- 
tion of allowing foreigners to vote, without 
these qualifications," is that, on the "day be- 
fore the election, the courthouse is crowded 
with files of foreigners to take out their pa- 
pers, and the next day they go to the polls to 



CHAPTER ¥—1855-1857 95 

turn the balance against men, native and for- 
eign, who have been here ten or twenty years. 
Men do this who know nothing of the interest 
of the country, men who have never had their 
attention turned towards any of the great du- 
ties of American citizenship, men who have 
so little interest in becoming citizens that they 
do not, in nine cases out of ten, pay the fees 
for their own naturalization papers; men who 
in nine cases out of ten do not seek the court- 
house of their own accord to get their natur- 
alization papers; men who are raked up in 
our cities and marched and dragged along be- 
fore the tribunals of the United States by men 
who stand by them to pay the fees of naturali- 
zation out of their own pockets; men whose 
papers are not even confided to their own 
keeping, but are kept by politicians in their 
own possession until they are marched up in 
files to the polls on the day of election." No 
party would naturalize men if they could not 
vote for a year. The five years a foreigner 
spends before naturalization form no equiva- 
lent for the twenty-one years of minority of 
natives. ''Men who have grown up under 
despotic governments have learned to obey au- 
thority from fear and, therefore, they look 
upon authority not as a power of which they 
are a part, but as their natural enemy." In 
Baltimore the United States Court sat on 



96 HENRY WINTER DAVIS 

election day, so that naturalized voters, made 
after the sun had risen, should vote before it 
went down. They were no fit arbiters of the 
affairs of the State. The Washington City 
authorities did not favor the proposed law,^^ 
and sent Davis a remonstrance, which he pre- 
sented to the House. The bill said that if the 
election judges knowingly refused to receive 
the vote of a legal voter, they are guilty of 
crime. Davis opposed this provision, since 
neither in Maryland nor in Virginia is an elec- 
tion judge held responsible for drawing a 
wrong conclusion from facts, but only for the 
exercise of his judgment. The word cor- 
ruptly, or an equivalent, should be inserted, 
if the act is to be considered a crime. "It is 
not the habit," he continued, "of this part of 
the country to appoint judicial officers and 
then hold them to the performance of their 
duties by penalties." The law was devised to 
revolutionize the city, after the defeat of the 
Administration in the local elections. Warm- 
ing to his theme, Davis continued his denun- 
ciation of the Democratic party. In "Balti- 
more, where from time immemorial" they 
"have made election after election one un- 
broken scene of violence, denunciations, riot, 
bullying and bloodshed," they "were taught a 
lesson last fall which they are not likely to for- 
get." Their success in 1852 had disturbed the 



CHAPTER V— 1855-1857 97 

nation. ''It was they who made the peaceful 
night horrid with their clank of the fire bell, 
before whose sound the prophetic mind of 
Jefferson trembled. It was they who, without 
one petition, without any popular demand, 
without any political necessity, without the 
excuse of any practical good hoped for or pre- 
tended, to the dismay of the peaceful millions 
of the North, with views of party ambition, 
rekindled the smoldering and dying embers of 
the slavery war and committed the nation to 
the strife of fierce factions, of which they are 
most dangerous." They call themselves sav- 
iours of the Union, but they are rather ''the 
evil genii of the Union, who first stirred those 
subterranean fires whence came that earth- 
quake which lately rocked its deep founda- 
tions." '' 

When the publication, at the nation's ex- 
pense, of the papers of the transcontinental 
exploring expeditions was proposed, Davis 
objected ^^ to the publication by the Federal 
government of picture books, or of stories of 
interesting travels, as unconstitutional, nor 
would he print incompleted reports, nor books 
on elegant paper with superb topography, in 
an expensive quarto form. He was willing, 
however, to vote for the printing of such a 
scientific wgrk as a "geographical reconnois- 
sance of the unexplored territory of the gov- 



98 HENRY WINTER DAVIS 

ernment." He advocated the establishment 
of a government printing office, instead of do- 
ing printing by contract. He favored a trans- 
continental road for military purposes, and 
held that, if it was right to build it, it was also 
right to make surveys for it and to publish 
those surveys. ''I think that the Government 
of the United States has the right to make a 
road wherever it has the right to send a sol- 
dier, or to send a mail bag. I think it is folly 
to make roads where roads are already made, 
but I think it would be wisdom to make them 
where they are not made and where they are 
necessary for the purpose of either military or 
postal transit. Whether they shall be made 
here or there is not, in my judgment, a ques- 
tion of constitutional power, but a question of 
expediency, with reference to the particular 
work and expenditure, and one which is ad- 
dressed to the discretion of government." 

He favored an appropriation for a foreign 
minister who went from Paraguay to Uruguay 
on a special mission,^^ as he thought that the 
officers of the United States were not slaves of 
the government, so as to owe all their time 
thereto. An officer was bound to take so much 
of his time as is necessary to discharge the 
service which he is charged to perform, and 
the residue is at his own disposal. Conse- 



CHAPTER V— 1855-1857 99 

quently, he may receive extra pay for extra 
services. 

He was much interested in the appropria- 
tion bills. He opposed ^ an appropriation for 
the Washington Aqueduct, as he objected to 
making local improvements with funds from 
the public treasury, though he was willing to 
pay the National Government's fair propor- 
tion for introducing water. Three-fourths of 
the work was in Maryland, and Davis doubted 
n the United States possessed the right of emi- 
nent domain there. If Congress can appro- 
priate for such a purpose as the Aqueduct, 
why can it not also do so for the improvement 
of rivers and harbors? Feeling that there has 
been a 'laxity in the conduct of the executive 
department,^^ running, it may be, through sev- 
eral administrations, which requires to be 
called to the attention of the country," Davis 
insisted that an appropriation should be defi- 
nite in amount. ''Ambiguous language is not 
to be construed in favor of taking money from 
the treasury." The creation of an obligation 
is one thing, and provision of funds to pay for 
it is another. The deficiency bill should not 
contain appropriations for expenditures of the 
preceding year, because the Secretary of War 
has applied this year's appropriation to pay 
them. If he may do this, he may also double 
the military establishment, and the Executive 



TOO HENRY WINTER DAVIS 

is emancipated from the control of the Legis- 
lature. Davis advocated a conference com- 
mittee on the Deficiency bill, though he 
thought that the Senate abused its privileges 
by sending back to the House fifty amend- 
ments to that bill which should have been in 
other bills. He felt that he had called the at- 
tention of the country to abuses, and could af- 
ford to waive his opposition, especially since 
Mr. Joseph Lane had told them of the 'inex- 
orable necessity" which existed for the pro- 
tection of the lives of the people of Oregon. 

Davis advocated the payment of Ohioans 
v/ho aided in the execution of the fugitive slave 
law, as it was wrong not to appropriate money 
needed to carry out any law, and he praised 
the Bostonians who helped to seize a fugitive 
slave. A colloquy, in excellent temper, fol- 
lowed with Joshua S. Giddings, the anti- 
slavery representative of the Western Reserve. 
In the course of it, Davis said that Jefiferson 
was the higher law man of his day, and in the 
Alien Act showed himself an unsafe guide in 
construing the Constitution and in adminis- 
tering the law. The higher law doctrine, 
''like noxious weeds, grows from year to year." 
Fillmore is to be praised, because he did not 
shrink from executing laws. The Abolition- 
ists are not the only partisans of the higher 
law, for the "strict construction, secession gen- 



CHAPTER V— 1855-1857 loi 

tlemen, who only meant to apply the dogma in 
extreme cases, of which they are to be the 
judges, stand upon the platform of Gid- 
dings." "" 

Baltimore politics were very turbulent in 
1 856. Eight years later ^^ Davis told the House 
of Representatives that the Democrats, ^'furi- 
ous" at his election, ^'organized for the elec- 
tions of 1856. The great Irish ward was a 
vast arsenal, and men marched forth in battle 
array and fired deliberately volleys into peace- 
ful crowds at a neighboring precinct. In- 
stantly it was replied to. But the Irishmen 
could not meet the young American mechan- 
ics, and again the Democrats mourned defeat, 
while we grieved over our friends treacher- 
ously slain. We had either to be driven from 
the polls or fight, and our young men prefer- 
red the latter alternative." 

In the second session of this Congress 
Davis's chief activity was in connection with 
an investigation of charges of corruption 
against certain members. He supported a bill 
for their punishment,^^ containing a section 
providing that any person testifying upon the 
subject before the investigating committee 
should be free from prosecution, which pro- 
vision he believed to be in accordance with 
the Common Law both of England and the 
United States, and he reported for the com- 



I02 HENRY WINTER DAVIS 

mittee, moving the expulsion of two of the in- 
culpated persons.^^ 

When the votes for President were counted, 
Davis said ^^ ''the only purpose of assembling 
here is to identify the things which are sent 
here as votes. The act is a ministerial and not 
a judicial one. ''Until the House has a mo- 
tion before it to proceed to the election of a 
President, their act is extra judicial." The 
Constitution does not "ask judgment by any one 
on a mere count, and does not say that any one 
shall be declared President; but, merely, that 
the votes shall be counted, and he who has a 
majority shall be President, not declared Pres- 
ident, for the law declares him. When called 
on to elect a President, we settle that result 
that there is an election, by refusing to go on 
and perform that duty." 
// He had previously expressed himself with 
great force on the teachings of the late elec- 
tion, in a speech delivered in the House on 
January 6.^ The President's message was un- 
der discussion, and Davis maintained that 
Pierce's words therein had given rise to the 
fierce debate on the meaning of the Presiden- 
tial election, in which the House was engaged. 
Davis vehemently attacked that "extraordi- 
nary document," which showed the bitterness 
of a spirit "broken by such a fall." He espe- 
cially objected to Pierce's statement that, as 



CHAPTER V— 1855-1857 103 

Senators represent their respective States and 
Congressmen their constituents, so ''the Presi- 
dent represents the aggregate population of 
the United States." Pierce's statement is one 
of ''sinister import," assigning "our lower 
sphere, where we should not behave unseem- 
ly." If it be true, however, then Buchanan, 
who received a minority of the popular vote, 
"misrepresents the people." In summing up 
the lessons of the election in his message, 
Pierce had departed "from the severe cour- 
tesy, the respectful reserve, the passionless dig- 
nity, observed by his predecessors in alluding 
to the conduct of sovereign States, or the mo- 
tives of great bodies of the people in the high- 
est function of their sovereignty;" had "for- 
gotten the President in the partisan, and in- 
flamed the passions already consuming the vi- 
tals of the Republic." The election had not 
only proved that a minority of the people de- 
sired Buchanan as President, favored the Kan- 
sas-Nebraska Act and approved of Pierce's 
administration ; but also that this minority 
"was so located, in various States, that under 
the Constitution it could cast a majority of the 
votes of the Electoral College." The election 
also demonstrated that the "blast which pros- 
trated" the friends of the Kansas-Nebraska 
Act at the "North was no passing squall; that 
no sober second thought had changed their 



I04 HENRY WINTER DAVIS 

first thought; but that a settled and unchange- 
able hostility through all the North condemns 
them to a hopeless and pitiable minority." 
The Democratic party had been really con- 
demned. ''The great majority of the country 
are tired of its men, are hostile to its princi- 
ples, condemn its measures, mock at its blun- 
ders, are weary of its agitations, abhor its sec- 
tional warfare and have ordered a hue and cry 
to be made against everything bearing the 
name of Democrat, as disturber of the public 
peace." That party, whose ''domination in 
the Executive chair" will continue, because 
people "were so unfortunate as to dififer as to 
the measure of redress," has long been divided 
on the questions of protection and internal im- 
provement, and now, on the question of slav- 
ery, has become widely divided "upon exactly 
the same question of constitutional power that 
rests at the bottom of the words of the Kansas- 
Nebraska Act." The language of this Act, 
2i£ Alexander H. Stephens had just said, con- 
ferred by grant "upon the people of the Ter- 
ritories all the legislative powers that Con- 
gress can confer." The dispute was as to 
whether these people can exercise their legis- 
lative power concerning slavery now," in their 
Territorial condition." This dispute was not 
a "mere difference of interpretation," but a 
"radical, inherent, profound difference" as to 



CHAPTER V— 1855-1857 105 

Congressional power, "splitting them from 
top to bottom." On this question, as to 
whether the Act ought to have been passed, 
the election of an anti-Kansas Act majority of 
the House in 1854 gave the answer of the 
w^hole North, but the North entered on a con- 
test "of reprisal and retaliation, revenge and 
conquest, not defense and restoration." South- 
ern Democrats claimed the "law as a great 
Southern triumph, not merely in point of 
principle, but in point of policy and fact, as 
opening a hitherto barred territory to slavery 
and giving a chance for another slave State to 
restore the disturbed equilibrium of the 
Union." On the other hand. Northern Demo- 
crats argued: "It is the best measure for free- 
dom, it breaks down all the compromises; it 
leaves the question open ; it confers legislative 
power upon the people of the Territory. You 
will never hear of another slave State; we will 
make Kansas a free State; and, therefore, we 
are willing to abide by the principles of the 
Kansas-Nebraska Act, because, although it 
ought not to have been passed, it perhaps will 
do no harm." So arguing, they even printed 
on handbills: "Buchanan, Breckenridge, and 
Free Kansas." Davis believed that it touched 
the "dignity of the South more" to have the 
slavery question settled by the rude back- 
woodsman," under the doctrine of squatter 



io6 HENRY WINTER DAVIS 

sovereignty, than in Congress in ^'solemn con- 
sultation," where partition might be made, so 
that peace should reign. He still favored com- 
promise and eulogized the "very purpose and 
principle of the Act of 1820," which 'Svere to 
vindicate the equality of States and the right 
of the people to form their own constitution 
without control." In advocating that compro- 
mise, William Pinkney's ''words of glory, vin- 
dicating the absolute equality of the States 
against the usurpation of the United States, 
form the fit prelude to that equal argument of 
the man of Massachusetts who, ten years after, 
maintained the supremacy of the United 
States against the encroachments of the States. 
On those cyclopean foundations have we rest- 
ed, and still unshaken rest, those two pillars of 
the Constitution, the absolute and inalienable 
equality of the States in their sovereign func- 
tion, and the equally absolute supremacy of 
the United States within the sphere of their 
conceded powers." Davis thought the Kan- 
sas Act an "electioneering manoeuvre" which 
had "secured neither a territory, nor a State, 
nor a constitutional principle, nor peace" to 
the South, but had reopened a "dangerous agi- 
tation" and divided the Democrats. Their 
party was no longer a "homogeneous body," 
and it won the Presidential election, because it 



CHAPTER V— 1855-1857 107 

obtained the votes of the ''foreign recruits in 
Pennsylvania." 

The election had also shown that the Re- 
publicans could not win. The people ''will 
not sanction a merely sectional canvass for the 
Presidency, nor intrust with the government a 
party whose whole power is confined to one- 
half the States, whatever their purposes may 
be. They will not sanction retaliation as the 
spirit in which wrong is to be repressed. They 
think that the evils of civil war are greater 
than the evils of another slave Territory, and 
the policy of the Republican party, while it 
did not justify, did tend to kindle war." The 
success of that party would have involved the 
"exclusion of every Southern gentleman from 
office," and one-half of the people would have 
had no voice in the government. Davis held 
that "the condition on which alone any party 
can fitly be entrusted with the government is 
the possession of power and friends enough, 
everywhere, to carry on the government with 
the men of the State to be governed, so that a 
domestic government shall not assume the 
form of foreign domination. Instruments of 
any power may always everywhere be found; 
but the office, in such hands, partakes of the 
nature of despotism, and such men alone were 
at the disposal of the Republican party in one- 
half the States of the Union." The Republi- 



io8 HENRY WINTER DAVIS 

can party was a hasty levy, en masse, of the 
Northern people," and ^^has no future," but 
must pass away with its occasion. From both 
Democratic and Republican parties ''the eye 
of the country turns with hope" to "the ranks 
of the American party, thinned by desertions, 
but still unshaken." That party "alone is free 
from sectional affiliations at either end of the 
Union, which would cripple it at the other. 
Its principle is silence, peace and compromise. 
It abides by the existing law. It allows no 
agitation. It maintains the present condition 
of afiPairs. It asks no change in any Territory, 
and it will countenance no agitation for the 
aggrandizement of any section." Its "high 
mission" was "to exclude appeals to foreign 
birth, or religious feeling, as elements of 
power in politics, to silence the voice of sec- 
tional strife — not by joining either, but by re- 
calling the people from a profitless contro- 
versy." The "sound position of the American 
party" was to hold "silence on the slavery 
agitation. Leave the Territories as they are — 
to the operation of natural causes. Prevent 
aggression by excluding from power the ag- 
gressors. Awake the national spirit to the 
danger and degradation of having the balance 
of power held by foreigners." 

Shortly before the Congress adjourned 
Davis was married a second time, on January 



CHAPTER V— 1855-1857 109 

26, 1857, to Miss Nancy Morris, daughter of 
John B. Morris, Esq., of Baltimore, who sur- 
vived him with two daughters.^ In the early 
part of his married life he spent a winter in 
the household of his father-in-law. He was 
rather a quiet man in his home, not speaking 
frequently, but occasionally pouring forth 
long speeches in eloquent form; not smiling 
often, but breaking forth in a sudden laugh, 
when something appealed to him as amusing. 

NOTES TO CHAPTER V. 

1. Speech of May 9, 1864. 

2. In the newspapers there was some correspondence between 
him and Mr. Henry May, his Democratic opponent. At lease three 
pamphlets appeared against Davis, i, "Portrait of Henry Win- 
ter Davis, Esq., by his own hand," which said that "his politi- 
cal inconsistencies were daguerreotyped in colors warranted not 
to fade, as his principles have always done under the corroding 
touch of time," and that in the American Sentinel of October 
22, 1855, Davis had asserted the unconstitutionality of the Ordi- 
nance of 1787; 2, "A Review of Mr. Henry Winter Davis and 
Free Soilism," which asserted that at the table he always took 
the Free Soil side; and 3, "Read and Judge for Yourself: A 
Review of the Pamphlet of Henry Winter Davis," i. e., the 
Origin, etc., of the American Party. 

3. On May 9, 1864. 

4. E. J. Walker, of Alabama, voted for him on December 4, 
and W. R. Smith on December 6. 

4a. Harris (1821-1898) was member of Congress from 1855 
to 1861. He was the reform candidate for Governor in 1876, 
and was a scholarly lawyer and a high-toned, courteous. Chris- 
tian gentleman of the old school. 

5. E. G. December 3 for Marshall, December 4 for Walker, 
Lake and Valk, December 6 for Wheeler. 



no HENRY WINTER DAVIS 

5a. Felix M. Zollicoffer, of Tennessee (1812-1862). 

5b. Thomas J. D. Fuller, of Maine (1808-1876). 

5c. William A. Richardson, of Illinois (1811-1875). 

5d. Nathaniel P. Banks, of Massachusetts (1816-1894). 

56. William Aiken, of South Carolina (1806-1887). 

si. Elisha D. Cullen (1799-1862). 

6. Vide I, Blaine, Twenty Years, 122. 

7. 3 Pierce's Sumner, 489. Lawrence M. Keith, of South 
Carolina (1824-1864). 

8. On February 28 he had favored a grant of an addition 
to the salary of the Governor of New Mexico, as he had acted 
as Superintendent of Indian Affairs. On the same day he in- 
troduced bills for the improvement of the Patapsco and for con- 
necting it with the Susquehanna. 

9. Gail Hamilton's Blaine, 112. 

10. On April 29 he opposed postponement of a Nebraskan 
contested election case. 

11. Speeches and Addresses, 39. 

12. Andrew Horatio Reeder (1807-1864). 

13. On August 13. 

13a. William S. Pennington (1796-1862). 
13b. Galusha A. Grow (1827-1907). 

14. On March 25. 

15. On May 14 and 15. 

16. Howell Cobb answered this speech. 

17. On April 2. 

1 8. On April i he had opposed the purchase of Alden's In- 
dex to the Supreme Court Reports. 

19. On April 11. 

20. On April 14. 

21. On April 25. 

22. On April 29. 



CHAPTER V—i855-i8s7 m 

23. On May 9. 

24. On August 7, under instructions from the Committee on 
Ways and Means, he offered an amendment to the Civil Appro- 
priation Bill, appropriating $200,000 for a United States Court 
House in Baltimore, expecting later to provide for a separate 
Post Office building. On the 8th he opposed, as improvident, 
Bowie's proposition to appropriate $267,000 for the purchase of 
the Merchants' Exchange in Baltimore for government uses. 

25. On May 9, 1864. 

26. On January 21 and 22. 

27. On February 11, 25, 27, 28. On February 24 he advo- 
cated relieving persons who had suffered in a fire when their 
goods were in bond. 

28. On February 11. 

29. Speeches and Addresses, 63. 

30. Speeches and Addresses, XXI. Mrs. Davis died in 1902. 
One daughter died young. 



112 HENRY WINTER DAVIS 



Chapter VI. 

THE THIRTY-FOURTH CONGRESS 

(i8s7-59)- 

In the autumn of 1857 ^ Governor of Mary- 
land was chosen. Seven years later, on the 
floor of the House of Representatives/ Davis 
thus spoke of the fall campaign: ''The Ameri- 
cans, having got possession of power, did what 
the Democrats had refused to do, organized 
the police and armed it, for we did not choose 
that, while we were in power, ruffians should 
make an election a question not merely of 
numbers, but of power. Representatives of 
the majesty of the law, we meant to enforce 
submission to it, and we organized and armed 
a strong police force and it accomplished its 
purpose and kept the peace." At the munici- 
pal election Davis claimed that "peace and 
quiet" reigned throughout the city, except in 
the Eighth ward, "where the Irish took pos- 
session of houses and armed themselves and 
shot at the police as they passed, and thrice 
marched to attack Americans at the polls, and 
as often they were dispersed. The police sup- 
pressed every attempt at disturbance, without 
hurting one of the villains who were aiming at 
their lives and who killed several of them." 



CHAPTER VI— 1857-1859 113 

The Gubernatorial election occurred a fort- 
night later. The Democratic Governor, 
Thomas W. Ligon,^ thought, said Davis, that 
'^nothing could defeat the Americans but the 
employment of organized militia," and called 
out six thousand men, armed with muskets 
borrowed from Governor Henry A. Wise, of 
Virginia. ^'Negotiations passed" to which 
Davis was a party and in which Thomas 
Swann, the Mayor,''showed indomitable firm- 
ness." Davis approved Swann's action and 
advised him to yield nothing. Ligon ''sent en- 
rolling officers through the streets to find men 
to hold Wise's muskets," but failed. Then 
Ligon, "disgusted at his own abortive attempt 
at military dictation, issued a final order" that, 
having secured the "object of his intervention, 
he would not use force, and slunk from the 
city which had tolerated his presence. After 
the negotiations had gone on all night, the 
broad place before the Holiday Street The- 
atre was packed with Swann's partisans, while 
Irish not far off, with clenched fists and yells, 
menaced them, without being able to provoke 
a word." One of Ligon's advisers saw that 
assembly over Swann's shoulder, and, going 
out of the back gate, told the Governor, who, 
after receiving that news, desisted from his 
efforts. The election "passed quietly as a Sab- 
bath and the people recorded their reproba- 



114 HENRY WINTER DAVIS 

tion of this illegal attempt" by electing 
Thomas Holliday Hicks, the American can- 
didate, as Governor.^ In the Congressional 
election Davis received 10,515 votes to 3,979 
cast for Brooks, his opponent/ On May 9, 
1864, Davis said that in the contest over this 
election proof had been given of only 26 ille- 
gal votes and of 40 or 50 cases of assault. Both 
sides contained violent men. Voters were 
prodded with awls at the polls, and the charge 
was made against Davis that he spoke at a 
meeting in Monument Square with a gigantic 
awl suspended above his head.^ Davis's fear- 
lessness is shown by an anecdote told of his 
campaigning. A Democratic club had sworn 
to mob him if he spoke at the Cross Street 
Market Hall. On the appointed evening, in 
an open carriage, wearing a full-dress suit, 
white gloves and a silk hat, he drove to the 
hall and walked through the crowd to the 
stage. There he stood, facing the audience, 
placed his hat on a table and, slowly drawing 
his gloves from his fingers, dropped them into 
the hat and then began an eloquent speech. 
The crowd, awed by his personality, listened 
intently, and as they left the hall a man was 
heard to say: '^That's the man for my vote. 
He as good as said, 'damn you, I don't care 
for you — put that in your pipe and smoke it.'" 
The party rancor of that time is shown in a 



CHAPTER VI— 1857-1859 115 

curious incident. On December 23, 1857, 
representatives of the Jefferson, Washington 
and Columbian Societies of the University of 
Virginia wrote to invite Davis to address them 
in the coming June. He accepted this invi- 
tation, writing from Washington on January 
4, 1858, and regretting that he had not visited 
the University since he ''left it for active life, 
seventeen years ago." The Jefiferson and 
Washington Societies soon withdrew their in- 
vitation, but the Columbian Society wrote, on 
January 26, expressing regret at the action of 
the other societies, "which was either on ac- 
count of political feelings or local preju- 
dices," and requested Davis to deliver the ad- 
dress before the Columbian Society alone. 

When Congress met in December, 1857, 
Henry P. Brooks contested Davis^s right to 
his seat, and William Pinkney Whyte, in the 
other Baltimore district, contested Harris's. 
In both cases it was alleged that there was no 
fair opportunity in Baltimore to exercise the 
right of suffrage. The election committee 
reported ^ that it was inexpedient to grant 
Brooks's prayer for the appointment of a com- 
mittee to take testimony at the public expense. 
He should be left to take testimony at his own 
expense, as Whyte was doing, having also 
been refused this desired privilege. No law- 
less condition prevented this course. This 



ii6 HENRY WINTER DAVIS 

report was discussed on the i6th and 17th, 
and was approved by a vote of 1 15 to 89. On 
the i6th Thomas F. Bowie, a Maryland Dem- 
ocrat, made a speech against Davis, full of 
sound and fury, and two days later, when 
Davis rose to the question of personal privi- 
lege to ask an explanation of Bowie's lan- 
guage, the latter retracted his words, saying 
that from his ''inmost soul" he ''abhorred the 
principles of the Know Nothing party," but 
did not "in any personal sense" refer to 
Davis. The contest dragged on until May 
19, when the House discharged the Election 
Committee from further consideration of 
Brooks's memorial. In the following month,^ 
similar disposition was made of the other con- 
test from Baltimore. 

At that time there were a Mayor and Coun- 
cil in Washington City elected by the resi- 
dents. Among the voters were many tempo- 
rary ones, "including possibly a thousand 
Government clerks, who look to leaving 
Washington at the end of four years," and a 
"swarm of laborers on the public works." 
Davis felt that neither of these classes could 
be said to be identified with the interests of 
the city, yet they controlled its destiny, casting 
from a fourth to a third of the six thousand 
votes. Riots had occurred at the last election, 
at which the Democratic candidate for Mayor 



CHAPTER VI-1857-1859 117 

had been elected by a plurality of 26 votes, 
through the influence of the Federal Admin- 
istration. At these riots the marines had been 
ordered out, and, firing on the mob, killed 
fourteen men and wounded twenty more. 
Thirty-four persons were indicted for riot by 
the grand jury, on which there was not a 
single member of the American party, while 
no investigation was made of the firing by the 
marines, whom Davis asserted the President 
had no right to call out, as the Marshal had 
not been called upon to quell the disturbance. 
Davis defended the accused men, who were 
not convicted, although tried before a petit 
jury, selected from a panel of whose thirty- 
two members only four were Know Nothings. 
On the floor of the House,^ he attacked the 
Administration and denied that his party 
caused the riot. 

His interest in local affairs was shown in 
his introducing a bilP for the improvement 
of the Patapsco River, so as to make the port 
of Baltimore accessible to war vessels of the 
United States. He gloried ^° that Maryland 
sold interest-bearing funds, borrowed money 
and paid interest on it, so that the War of 
1812 could be carried on. Her claim was 
settled on equitable principles'^ in 1826. 

In opposing the Treasury Note bill, which 
was making ''a perpetual, irredeemable cur- 



ii8 HENRY WINTER DAVIS 

rency the very material of exchange," though 
the Administration had spoken against the 
evils of paper currency, Davis maintained 
that 'Ve have now a perfectly sound paper 
currency throughout the country, because the 
banks have not broken. Merchants have 
broken, but the banks have not broken. The 
paper has not been returned to them. It is 
still in circulation. Now the Treasury wishes 
to increase the paper currency, to the ex- 
tent of twenty millions, and, therefore, 
either inflates the currency, or substitutes 
the credit of the Government for it." ''The 
Government had locked money in its vaults, 
through the Sub-treasury system, more than 
w^as needful, and the speculative tendencies of 
the country had been pushed on by the tariff 
policy of the administration, so that a panic 
occurred, which was not rapidly passing 
away." During this panic the Secretary of 
the Treasury had been guilty of a ''grave 
financial error," in purchasing "United States 
stock" at a premium. ^^ Davis supported Stan- 
ton's proposal ^^ for investigation of the 
charges of bribery in connection with the pas- 
sage of the tariff of 1857. He voted against 
all the tariff bills, and, standing "in terror of 
no press," said that he usually held newspaper 
charges in such contempt that the only notice 
he would take of them would be to bring 



CHAPTER VI— 1857-1859 119 

them to a grand jury. Here, however, the 
charge was that money was used. This may 
have been done legitimately, so that he wished 
that technicalities, delay and secrecy might be 
taken away in the investigation, and that a 
committee, sitting as commissioners, should 
take evidence and lay the result before the 
House, which could then determine whether 
to put the parties on trial. Davis advocated 
the inclusion of a clause in the Consular and 
Diplomatic bill,^^ providing that the money 
appropriated therein be not applied to meet 
expenses accruing before or after the fiscal 
year, so that there may be a readjustment of 
accounts and a review of the expediency of 
the appropriations every year. This limita- 
tion should not prevent appropriations for ob- 
jects of permanent interest, such as buildings, 
but would prevent squandering and misappli- 
cation of public funds and would give Con- 
gress greater control of the Administration.^' 

Always interested in the proposal to build 
a Pacific railroad, he found authority therefor 
in the powers to establish post roads, to pro- 
vide for the common defence, to carry on war 
by providing transportation for troops, where 
Jefferson found authority to begin the Na- 
tional road, where Monroe, Madison, Adams 
and Jackson found authority to vote for the 
Chesapeake and Delaware Canal, and where 



I20 HENRY WINTER DAVIS 

Congress found authority to enter the soil of 
Maryland for the Washington aqueduct, to 
declare the great navigable waters of the 
West perpetual channels of commerce, to 
make the Wheeling bridge a post road, and 
to build postoffice buildings.^^ 

When a resolution was pending to expel the 
delegate from Utah, inasmuch as the Terri- 
tory was in open rebellion, Davis, in opposi- 
tion,^^ said: "If there is resistance, in either 
a Territory or State, it is not, in the eye of the 
law, and cannot be a resistance of the legal 
authorities of the Territory and, therefore, 
cannot be regarded as the resistance of the 
Territory itself; but certain evil-disposed per- 
sons within the limits of the territory, under 
the guise of its authority, are resisting the 
laws that bind them." Such was his view of 
the constitutional relation of citizen to the 
Union. It might be an appropriate subject 
for inquiry, whether there be "an illegal and 
organized combination of evil-minded citi- 
zens who have banded themselves together to 
resist the authority of the United States." If 
any territorial officers take part in such re- 
bellion, the President can remove them. If 
the delegate has countenanced an illegal com- 
bination against the Federal laws, he should 
be expelled; but if he is loyal, "though that 
rebellion should include every citizen in the 



CHAPTER VI— 1857-1859 121 

Territory except one, still he stands here as 
the representative of the legal rights of that 
one man in that Territory. Nay, sir, he stands 
here as the representative of the rebellious 
children of the Republic. He stands here to 
see that those who have committed treason 
shall be tried fairly under the Constitution 
and laws of the United States. He stands 
here to see that the laws are carried out which 
protect the man who has been guilty of trea- 
son from the outrage and violence which mili- 
tary authority visits upon political offenders." 
In these fiery words did he define his position, 
which he was forced by the logic of events to 
take again within a few years in a much more 
serious emergency. 

He opposed the admission of Kansas under 
the Lecompton Constitution, and on March 
30^^ addressed the House on that subject. 
Having previously voted against admitting 
Kansas as a State under the Topeka free State 
constitution, he felt he occupied an advan- 
tageous position in the debate. No higher 
proof of his ability as a constitutional lawyer 
can be given than his discussion of the admis- 
sion of States in that speech. He began by 
expressing surprise that ''an Administration 
which professes to be the godfather of ''popu- 
lar sovereignty" should oppose the submission 
of a Constitution to the popular vote; that an 



122 HENRY WINTER DAVIS 

Administration, which is in name Demo- 
cratic, should propose to impose upon the ma- 
jority the will of the minority." However, 
Davis saw in the movement an attempt "to 
prevent the Administration, which boasted 
itself the omnipotent pacificator, from being 
brought to lick the dust, now, ere the termi- 
nation of the first session of its first Congress." 

Davis demanded proof that the "piece of 
parchment" produced by the Administration 
contained "the will of the people of Kansas." 
Buchanan's followers asked that Kansas be 
admitted under the Lecompton Constitution, 
"for the sake of the principle involved." 
Davis asked: what was the principle? He 
could not accept it as a principle that 2,200 
men who had voted for the members of the 
convention at Lecompton, should "make their 
will the law" over 10,000 who voted against 
ratifying the constitution framed there; nor 
that the people of a Territory had a "legal 
right themselves to take the initiative and lay 
upon your table a constitution" the acceptance 
of which they are entitled to demand ; nor that 
any constitution containing "a clause sanction- 
ing slavery" must be accepted. He would not 
reject the constitution because slavery was 
"embraced" therein. "If put there by the will 
of the people, it ought not to weigh with the 
weight of the dust in the balance upon the 



CHAPTER VI— 1857-1859 123 

question, for to allow that to be a ground of 
exclusion would be unwise and would exhibit 
an unsocial disposition," which would ''lead to 
nothing but disastrous civil collisions." 

Davis especially dissented from the position 
that Congress was bound to accept what the 
Territory had sent. They might inquire 
''whether there be here legal authority, 
whether here the ballot-box has been protect- 
ed, how many stayed from the polls, or why 
they did so." 

"All that is necessary," argued Davis, "to 
the admission of a State, is the concurrence of 
the will of the people of a Territory and of 
Congress. The application of a Territory to 
be admitted as a State is only a petition upon 
your table — an offer upon their part which 
we may accept or which we may reject at our 
pleasure. After that concurrence, it has been 
ingrafted into the living body politic of the 
country, bone of our bone, flesh of our flesh, 
to share with us for good or evil, to the end of 
time, the blessings or misfortunes of the Re- 
public — to be severed by nothing except that 
external violence which shall lop off some 
living limb of the Republic," or by civil 
strife. With great acumen he proceeded to 
state that enabling acts "are only the guaran- 
tees that Congress, in its wisdom, throws 
around the expression of the popular will." 



124 HENRY WINTER DAVIS 

After the people have acted under these acts, 
"the will of Congress, to concur with the will 
of the people, is expressed in the act of Con- 
gress admitting the State, and it is that con- 
currence" which ''alone makes the distinction 
between a Territory" and a State. Our Con- 
stitution knows no such thing as an "incipient 
State." Davis found "no intermediate con- 
dition between a Territory and a State." 
Whatever is covered by the jurisdiction of the 
United States is either a Territory or a State. 
He left the "dogma of sovereignty" to the 
"gentlemen who meddle with metaphysical 
disquisitions." "The word is not used in our 
laws; it is not found among the wise words of 
our Constitution. It is the will of the wisp, 
which they who follow will find a treacherous 
guide through fens and bogs." Nor would he 
define "popular sovereignty," that "dema- 
gogue's name for the right of the people to 
govern themselves — not that popular sover- 
eignty which is limited by and springs from 
an act of Congress — not that mushroom 
growth bred in the hotbed of political cor- 
ruption as a dainty delicacy for the people's 
palate, under the sedulous care" of the Demo- 
crats — "which, now that it is grown, is found 
to be nothing but toadstools, whereof the body 
politic is sick; but that right of the people to 
govern themselves, recognized by the funda- 



CHAPTER VI— 1857-1859 125 

mental law as the very corner-stone of the Re- 
public, which, in this case, the President vio- 
lates and denied." Davis intended to deal in 
'legal language," in which he found "such a 
thing as the people of the United States, of 
which the people of a Territory form the sub- 
jects." The Territories had no "legal right" 
to initiate proceedings to form a constitution." 
The House was not then "dealing with revo- 
lutionary, but with legal rights. We live and 
are born under the Constitution, and to us that 
is the ultimate criterion of legal rights; it is 
our embodiment of natural right, in a living, 
practical form of government; beyond it we 
recognize no natural right as a source of legal 
right, and he who can not deduce his claim 
of right under it, has none." There must be 
no confusion of a "right of law, under the 
Constitution, with the natural right men- 
tioned in the Declaration of Independence, of 
people to alter and change their government 
to suit themselves." The people living in a 
territory must form a State government for 
themselves, within the geographical limits 
laid out for them by Congress, "the only legal 
authority, the only source of law for the Ter- 
ritories." Congress throws around these peo- 
ple "a legal protection," authorizes them to 
proceed, and gives them "the guarantees of 
law in their proceedings." Congress had 



126 HENRY WINTER DAVIS 

passed no special act authorizing a convention 
in Kansas, and the Kansas-Nebraska Act did 
not do so, for it reserved to Congress power 
to make two or more States out of the Terri- 
tory. He discussed the manner of admission 
of all the States: first, those such as Vermont 
and Texas, which had never been Territories; 
second, Territories such as Ohio, in which 
Congress had given the Legislatures ''power to 
make laws in all cases; and third, Territories 
such as Minnesota, in which, as in Kansas, 
Congress had extended the Legislature's 
power ''to all rightful subjects of legislation." 
For both the second and third classes enabling 
acts had been passed, specially authorizing the 
call of a Constitutional Convention and pro- 
viding for the details of that convention. 
Next he took up "Territories which have 
spontaneously petitioned for admission under 
constitutions framed without an enabling 
act," such as Arkansas. In all these cases 
Congress declared the boundaries of the State 
in the act admitting it, and thus established 
the fact that there was "no authority in her 
constitution prior to her admission," for "the 
territorial limits of a State are essential to her 
existence." If the territorial convention has 
no right to define "the territory of the State it 
creates," it cannot "create a State in the eye of 
the law at all, for Congress may destroy its 



CHAPTER VI— 1857-1859 127 

identity by taking away a half, or two-thirds, 
or all its territory." Consequently, till ''final 
admission as a State, the constitution is not a 
law; it is merely a proposition." When Mich- 
igan was admitted, after framing a constitu- 
tion without an enabling act, Buchanan said, 
in the Senate, that the passing of laws by the 
Legislature for the calling of a constitutional 
convention was an ''act of usurpation." Cal- 
houn then held that the movement "was revo- 
lutionary, as it threw off the authority of the 
United States over the Territory and that we 
are left at liberty to treat like proceedings as 
revolutionary and to remand her to her terri- 
torial condition, or to waive the irregulari- 
ty." ^^ Buchanan made an initial blunder in 
recognizing the Lecompton convention, which 
he ought to have ordered the military to dis- 
perse, as they had been directed to turn out 
the convention held at Topeka. Davis next 
showed that the law of the Legislature of 
Kansas in regard to the convention was not 
executed, for no census of the whole Terri- 
tory was taken, as directed, before the election 
for members of the convention; the apportion- 
ment was made by the secretary, who was the 
acting Governor, and not by the Governor 
and secretary; and fourteen counties were not 
represented in the convention. If, then, there 
was no legal election, those who did not vote 



128 HENRY WINTER DAVIS 

were not ''bound by it." ''They were only 
not participating in a usurpation. The foun- 
dation for a presumption of the assent of those 
who stayed at home is that the law required 
them to be at the polls. It is the duty of the 
citizen to cast his vote, and if the citizen does 
not cast it, he is held to authorize those who 
do, but that cannot be, where the proceeding 
has no legal validity." Less than 3,000 voters 
here "modestly ask the powers of a State gov- 
ernment against the votes of 10,000 and the 
protest of 7,000," so that it is seen that "an 
overwhelming majority of the people are op- 
posed to the thing that is now sought to be 
forced, or foisted upon them." Yet Buchanan 
stated that "the way to pacify them is to sub- 
ject them, permanently, to the hateful domi- 
nation of the handful of men from whose 
hands they would have wrested the govern- 
ment but for the United States troops." His 
"policy is high treason against the right of the 
people to govern themselves." Since the 
"stronger part of the people" is against the 
Constitution and the President proposes to 
"confide the power of State government" to 
the "weaker party," Davis asked whether the 
United States troops were "to guarantee the 
new usurpation." He held that the passage 
of this law would be a "declaration of civil 
war," and that "free government is a farce, if 



CHAPTER VI— 1857-1859 129 

men are required to submit to usurpation such 
as has here been perpetrated." He feared that 
^'the people of Kansas are not in a mood to as- 
sist at the farce. They will turn it into trag- 
edy. Having heretofore resisted, we ought 
to suppose they will resist again." Congress 
ought not to drive them "upon revolutionary 
courses," but "give them the opportunity of 
expressing their will as to the law under 
which they are to live." 

Later in the session,^^ when the Kansas situ- 
ation was again under discussion, Davis fa- 
vored giving the people there an opportunity 
to say whether or not they preferred the Le- 
compton Constitution. He believed that that 
Constitution had been framed by a majority 
of the people of the Territory, and while he 
did not object to the Constitution, he did ob- 
ject to forcing the people to accept it. Davis 
had strong State's rights ideas from having 
studied at the school" of Clay and Pinkney, 
and at the University of Virginia, and had 
heard "upon every Southern hustings, since as 
a boy I attended debates, and since as a man 
I have taken my humble share in them," that 
every new State had a right to be admitted on 
equal terms with every other State. This is a 
"fundamental principle which lies at the very 
basis of the Confederacy." Therefore, "no 
Southern gentleman can consistently vote 



I30 HENRY WINTER DAVIS 

for" the pending bill. When John H. Rea- 
gan, of Texas, remarked that Davis was in- 
consistent, inasmuch as he had opposed the 
repeal of the Missouri Compromise, Davis 
replied that ^'The Missouri Compromise did 
not admit any such principle as that there 
could be any limitation upon the sovereign 
power of a State, whether with reference to 
slavery or any other subject. It did proceed 
upon the assumption that there could be a re- 
striction upon a Territory while it remained 
a Territory, and no longer than it remained a 
Territory." Pinkney had argued that an ^'in- 
fant State" could not be tied up, and opposed 
the compromise, because he did not consider 
the power rested in Congress to control the 
question of slavery during the territorial con- 
dition. Previous to the admission of Missouri, 
conditions of various kinds had been put into 
enabling acts, but never since that time, as the 
debate then settled the question.^^ He object- 
ed to the method of adoption of the Lecomp- 
ton Constitution under a law which was ab- 
solutely void, as it surpassed the authority of 
a territorial Legislature to call a convention. 
The pending bill refused to allow the people 
of Kansas "to gain admission to the Union, 
unless they concede one of the flowers of their 
prerogative." A Territory may be admitted 
by petition of a majority of the inhabitants. 



. CHAPTER VI— 1857-1859 131 

If, after admission, Kansas chooses to yield 
its sovereign prerogative as a matter of con- 
tract, she may do so. When the bill says 
Kansas shall not tax United States lands, 
it merely sets forth a declaration that 
such are the public rights of the United 
States, operative without the assent of Kan- 
sas; but the power to tax lands in the hands 
of individuals is absolute and can not be lim- 
ited by Congress, more than any other por- 
tion of the taxing power of the State.^^ Davis 
represented a Southern Statewhich lost '^more 
negroes a year by the failure to execute the 
Fugitive Slave law than all the other States 
put together — a border State, and hence, in 
case of serious difficulty, more directly inter- 
ested than South Carolina herself, for she has 
a tier of patriotic States between her and any 
aggressor. The State of Maryland is on the 
frontier." Following Pinkney and in the 
name of Maryland, Davis solemnly protested 
against conceding the right of State sover- 
eignty, ''so vital to the maintenance of the in- 
terests of the South." 

A week later,^^ he opposed the admission of 
Minnesota, whose Constitution admitted to 
the suffrage white persons of foreign birth, 
who had declared their intention to become 
citizens — because, under the Federal Consti- 
tution, a State had no right to confer this priv- 



132 HENRY WINTER DAVIS 

ilege. The right of suffrage affected directly 
all States, through the election of representa- 
tives in Congress. Therefore, foreigners were 
thus given power, not merely to misgovern 
Minnesota, but also ^^me and my constituents." 
Calhoun properly had opposed a similar pro- 
vision in the Michigan Constitution. The 
Federal Constitution begins with the phrase, 
''We, the people of the United States," not 
the residents, which, would include slaves, but 
the body politic, persons who are citizens of 
the United States. Davis cited Taney's opin- 
ion in the Dred Scott case in support of his 
contention, and said that he would vote against 
any one who should claim a seat in the House 
through the votes of unnaturalized foreigners. 

At the Baltimore election of 1858, as Davis 
told the House of Representatives six years 
later,^^ the Democrats ''submitted to the inev- 
itable. Finding that organized military force 
would not crush us, they organized a most in- 
famous association, called the Reform party, 
whose duty it was to lie down what they could 
not fight down in open daylight. Its leaders 
shrank from contact with the rough crowd at 
the polls ; they wanted an election managed 
like a ballroom. They went to the polls and 
stayed till about 10 o'clock, getting all the 
votes they had, and when they had run dry, 
by preconcerted arrangement, they withdrew 



CHAPTER VI— 1857-1859 133 

from the polls and said they were not allowed 
to vote, and whined about freedom of elec- 
tions." 

Turning aside from political affairs, on No- 
vember 16, 1858, Davis addressed the gradu- 
ating class at the commencement of the East- 
ern Female High School of Baltimore.^ Yet 
even here he devoted his chief attention to a 
defense of the religious freedom of the United 
States, which he sharply differentiated, both 
from that tolerationwhich declared the ''State 
the patron of all the sects, whose ministers it 
pays and controls as a part of the machinery 
of government, and seeks the quiet of the 
State in the stagnation of opinion and the he- 
reditarv descent of creeds;" and from the an- 
cient principle 'Svhich assumes the supremacy 
of the spiritual over the civil power; asserts 
the right of the church to define and the State 
to enforce the true faith; prohibits free judg- 
ment, or punishes its errors as crimes." Con- 
trary to both of these principles is ''the Amer- 
ican principle of the freedom of thought, the 
freedom of religion, the right of every citizen 
to unchecked freedom in forming his religious 
opinions, and the deep interest of the State in 
securing him not only freedom, but the means 
of enlightened judgment, and the greater, 
deeper and holier faith in the sufficiency of 
every enlightened mind to read for himself in 



134 HENRY WINTER DAVIS 

the Word of God the will of God, whose 
practice is religion/' The American people 
are religious, and their governments uphold 
religion, but oppose sectarianism. The sys- 
tem of education supported by the American 
people is not godless, though it is unsectarian. 
''Everywhere the public schools attest their 
efforts to make freedom of thought and re- 
ligion, not merely the right, but the habit of 
the nation. The State throws open the field 
of knowledge and declares the right of every 
one freely to enter and enjoy the fruits." He 
believed in reading the Bible in the schools, 
without ''sectarian exposition." "All history 
cannot show the mass of any people ever edu- 
cated by any church," and the State must as- 
sume the task. The home must assist the State 
in training the young, and "cultivated and pi- 
ous mothers preside over the family." He 
was glad to see the class before him, those 
"future matrons of the Republic," who al- 
ready showed fitness for their "high mission 
as prophets of patriotic inspiration to the 
young men of the land." He believed that 
v/oman's place was in the home, and that 
"when, in after years, the eye of the world 
shall wonder at the dazzling destinies of the 
Republic, culminating in splendor and tri- 
umph," they would learn "that it is not the 
glory of industry, or arts, or arms, but the 



CHAPTER VI— 1857-1859 135 

light which the matrons of a nation shed 
around its path." 

In the second session of this Congress, Davis 
chiefly took the floor to debate military mat- 
ters.^ He complained that, through ''the in- 
decision of Congress and the lack of nerve 
and energy and independence" of the Presi- 
dent and the Secretaries of War, the head of 
almost every regiment had been allowed to be- 
come an old man, incompetent to do his duty 
in the field. A young man with brevet rank 
had to be allowed to discharge this duty, and 
should receive the same pay. He also moved 
to strike out appropriations for commutation 
and extra rations to oflicers at the principal 
stations, holding that the Government had 
too many stations, consulted personal interests 
and favored "gentlemen of antique years." 
He claimed ^ that the Secretary of War had 
been guilty of ''flagrant and persistent viola- 
tions of law" in the Quartermaster's Depart- 
ment, in expending money beyond the amounts 
appropriated, and that nothing would restrain 
him but a vote of censure or impeachment.^ 
Later in the session,^ he moved to strike out 
an appropriation for boats used in an expedi- 
tion to Paraguay, which the President had 
"created," incurring an expense greatly in ex- 
cess of the appropriation given for that war, 
"which in an unguarded moment of enthusi- 



136 HENRY WINTER DAVIS 

asm we authorized him to wage." On the 
other hand, he defended the coast survey, say- 
ing that ''It is not economy to stop great na- 
tional works of necessity. It is economy to 
stop the leaks in the Commissary Department, 
or in the Quartermaster's Department, or the 
stealings in the navy yards, or the wasteful and 
extravagant expenditures under the name of 
miscellaneous; but it is not economy to stop 
the clearing out of our rivers and harbors, or 
the erection of our fortifications, or the sup- 
ply of our armaments; still less is it common 
sense to darken our light-houses, or to arrest 
the survey of the coast." These are econom- 
ical expenditures which pay more, in what 
they save, than the Government expends in 
accomplishing these great objects. 

Davis was always opposed to the increase of 
slavery. About this time he wrote for the 
newspapers a stirring article against the re- 
opening of the foreign slave trade.^^ He felt 
that it was "time that the insidious advances 
toward this nefarious and unchristian traffic, 
which a large and influential party" were 
''making, should attract the attention of Mary- 
land," lest the people be taken unawares. The 
"grand and humane" colonization policy was 
said to have failed; the discontinuance of the 
joint English and American fleet cruising ofif 
the coast of Africa to capture slave vessels was 



CHAPTER VI— 1857-1859 137 

proposed; the ^'English experiment of eman- 
cipation" in the West Indies was alleged to 
have been mistaken; men asserted ''the uni- 
versal unfitness of the negro for mere personal 
civil freedom anywhere" ; the unconstitution- 
ality of the Federal statute against the foreign 
slave trade was alleged; juries in the South 
refused to convict slave traders in the very 
teeth of the evidence. ''The question is upon 
us: Is it the great Democratic bait to catch 
the South in i860, or to concentrate the South 
for an act of rebellion? The Democratic 
party is now ready at the South to make the 
issue — repeal or rebellion. What does Mary- 
land say?" With this query he ended this 
article, as full of a triumphant irony as any- 
thing he ever wrote. 

Davis was active throughout 1859 in en- \ 
deavoring to bring about a fusion of the Re- 
publican party in the North with the Ameri- 
can party and with the remnant of the South- 
ern Whigs. In pursuance of this effort, he 
addressed Horace Greeley an important letter, 
which was published in the New York Tr/- 
^zin^ during November, 1859.^^ Davis favored 
the nomination of Judge Edward Bates, of 
Missouri, for the Presidency, and endeavored 
to induce the Republican party to select him 
as a candidate for whom both Southern Whigs 
and Northern Republicans could vote. He 



138 HENRY WINTER DAVIS 

vainly hoped that the nomination might be 
made in the old Whig fashion, without any 
declaration as to legislation in reference to 
slavery in the Territories. He addressed a 
number of letters to individuals and to jour- 
nals against the wisdom of the union of the 
forces opposed to the Democratic party on 
such a basis, and maintained that ''all the Ter- 
ritories are now, by law and in fact, free, for 
there are slaves in none." In New Mexico 
alone had any legislation attempted to estab- 
lish slavery, and the act there passed was void, 
being in conflict with the decree of Mexico 
abolishing slavery." If the Republicans 
should insist on the enactment of a law pro- 
hibiting slavery in the Territories as "a cardi- 
nal point of policy in the canvass of 1860," 
they would lose the substance for the shadow" 
and would fail to accomplish anything. On 
the other hand, the election of a President, 
''holding the views of Mr. Clay" as to slavery, 
"and in character above the necessity of 
pledges or platform, insures everything that 
is necessary to satisfy reasonable men, to ar- 
rest the slave propaganda." To carry a legis- 
lative restriction of slavery, the Republicans 
must have a clear majority of both Houses of 
Congress and the President, and hold this po- 
sition "long enough to change the Supreme 
Court." The last was essential, "for, as now 



CHAPTER VI— 1857-1859 139 

constituted, or as hereafter filled by any Dem- 
ocrat, any law of Congress restricting slaves 
will be declared void," and thus any legisla- 
tion will be undone. 

^^On the other hand," Davis urged, ''the 
election of a President in i860, of itself, si- 
lences and arrests the slave propaganda, if he 
be elected by a combination of the opposition, 
in a manner so free as to secure a permanent 
union of the Republican and American vot- ^ 
ers." He, alone, ''is sufficient, and without 
him everything else is perfectly worthless." 
He can veto Congressional legislation, ap- 
point Territorial officers, and also the judges 
of the Supreme Court. With sagacious fore- 
sight, Davis saw that "between now and the 
end of the next term a majority of the judges 
now on the bench must, in the course of na- 
ture, be substituted by others. Three new ap- 
pointments will change the complexion of the 
Court. There are more than three very old 
men, whose places must be filled by the next 
administration and that will determine the 
complexion of the Court for the next genera- 
tion." The odious "Dred Scott case is a Dem- 
ocratic case, decided by Democratic judges, 
resting on Democratic party political views 
of the Constitution and laws, and inspired by 
Democratic prejudices and sentiments." No 
Whig judge would have concurred in it, for 



I40 HENRY WINTER DAVIS 

Clay and the Whigs believed that slavery 
^'existed only by virtue of the positive law of 
the land on which it was attempted to be en- 
forced. So that if forbidden by Congress, or 
if neither forbidden nor sanctioned by Con- 
gress, it did not exist; and if Congress has no 
power over the subject at all, then that, of 
itself, made all the Territories necessarily and 
forever free, till they both became States and 
adopted slavery." In Davis's view, ^^to ac- 
complish a reversal of the Dred Scott folly, no 
pledge is needed, no platform, nothing but a 
President holding Mr. Clay's views. Judges 
appointed by such a President will instantly 
repudiate that ridiculous farrago of bad his- 
tory, worse law, and Democratic partisan- 
ship." Davis appreciated fully the great 
power of the President, as it was to be wielded 
by Lincoln and as it has been again, in the 
twentieth century. Therefore, he wrote that 
the President ''is omnipotent against anything 
but a two-thirds vote of both houses, so that 
his administration may be censured, but can- 
not be arrested by any less number by law/' 
"The tendency was to have a Congress in sym- 
pathy with the President, but without such 
agreement" the ''slave propaganda is forever 
broken down," for, without his consent, there 
can be passed no slave code for the Territories, 
nor a repeal of the laws against the slave 



CHAPTER VI— 1857-1859 141 

trade, nor can there be a repetition of the 
scenes of Kansas. If the conservative people 
could unite and carry the election of i860, 
they ought to continue in possession of the 
Federal Government for a generation; but, if 
they fail, ''they may roll up the map of the 
United States for twenty years. ^^ 

NOTES ON CHAPTER VI. 

1. On May 9, 1864. 

2. "Now a traitor," said Davis in 1864. B. G. Harris asked 
why Ligon was so called, and Davis, after an angry encounter 
of words, said: "I respectfully decline to make any reply to the 
unworthy member from Maryland." 

3. In 1864 Davis said that J. C, Groome, who ran against 
Hicks, was now disloyal, so that the historical significance of 
that election was considerable, as Hicks's Union sympathies 
were most important in 1861. 

4. Brooks later became a secessionist, and was confined in 
Forts Lafayette and Warren. 

5. 3 Scharf, Md. 273. 

6. On February 12. 

7. On June 11. 

8. On May 24. 

9. On January 22. 

10. On June 7. 

11. On June 7 he condemned any department violating a law 
by making a contract for the extension of the Capitol without 
specific authorization, but felt that "If Congress saw fit to waste 
the people's money, it was no part of the President's business 
to make them economical." 

12. Speech of December 19. 

13. On January 15. 

14. On June 3 — vide position on Clayton-Bulwer Treaty on 
May II. 



142 HENRY WINTER DAVIS 

15. His zeal for efficiency in public service was shown on 
March 2 by his opposition to the attempt to replace on the roll 
of officers men declared unfit for positions by two Boards of 
Inquiry. 

16. Speech of January 20. 

17. On December 23. 

18. Speeches and Addresses, 83. 

19. Davis here spoke of Calhoun as "a gentleman from 
whom, in many respects, it is my misfortune to have differed 
in political opinion, but who, in my judgment, was one of the 
ablest gentlemen that ever graced the councils of this country — 
more conservative, manly and upright in his views and con- 
victions, and conduct, than almost any man of his party; al- 
ways ready to sacrifice party allegiance on the altar of truth; 
always following the dictates of an independent judgment, as 
well in his votes as in his reasoning, and, for that reason, justly 
the worshiped idol of the great Southern section of this country." 

20. On April 28. 

21. He admitted that grants of land might be made on a 
condition. 

22. The bill said non-resident proprietors should not be 
taxed higher than resident ones. Davis said this discrimination 
is a question of State policy, which may prevent "Irish absen- 
teeism." 

23. On May 5. 

24. On May 9, 1864. 

25. Speeches and Addresses, 104. 

26. On December u, 1858, he opposed the impeachment of 
Judge Watrous, of Texas; on February 9, 1859, he said that the 
precedent of the contested election case of Vallandigham vs. 
Campbell, authorized the admission of hearsay evidence in the 
Nebraska contested election; on February 15 he moved to ap- 
propriate an extra amount to Miami Indians not named in the 
treaty with the tribe, so that the amount given to the enumer- 
ated Indians be not unjustly diminished; on March 3 he ob- 
jected to the report of the Conference Committee on the Post- 
office bill, said there was no authority to make a contract to 
carry the mails to the Pacific Coast via Tehuantepec without 



CHAPTER VI— 1857-1859 143 

revoking the contract made via Panama, and that it was con- 
trary to the privileges of the House for the Chairman of the 
Committee on Ways and Means to say that the President will 
or will not sign certain bills. 

27. On February 18. 

28. On March i he proposed not to allow the reopening of 
old accounts, when the claims of the States were discussed in 
the Army bill. 

29. On March 2. 

30. On February 28. 

31. Speeches and Addresses, 115. 

32. Speeches and Addresses, 119. 

33. Scharf, Chron. of Balto., 574, speaks of Anthony Ken- 
nedy and Davis as addressing a Know Nothing mass-meeting at 
Baltimore on October 27, 1859. 



144 HENRY WINTER DAVIS 



Chapter VII. 

THE THIRTY-FIFTH CONGRESS 
AND THE STRUGGLE TO PRE- 
SERVE THE UNION. 

After being nominated by the American 
party in 1858 for re-election to Congress, 
Davis accepted the nomination in a speech at 
the Maryland Institute, in which he said that 
^'Our policy is to oppose all agitation of 
slavery." The Thirty-fifth Congress, like the 
Thirty-third, opened with a long and bitter 
struggle over the election of a Speaker. Davis 
voted for John A. Gilmer, of North Carolina, 
a conservative man, throughout December, 
1859, and January, i860, but on the last day 
of the latter month he changed his vote to Pen- 
nington, of New Jersey, a conservative man, 
but the Republican candidate, an act which 
led to '^considerable applause from the Re- 
publican benches and mingled applause and 
hisses from the galleries," as The Globe re- 
porter noted. This vote, which led, on the 
next day, to the election of Pennington over 
McClernand, the Democratic candidate, 
caused great indignation in many quarters 
throughout Maryland. As had been the case 
four years previously, Davis's colleague, Har- 



CHAPTER VII— 1859-1861 14s 

ris, was more conservative, and continued vot- 
ing for Gilmer to the last The Maryland 
Legislature had a Democratic majority, and 
on February 9 the House of Delegates, by a 
vote of 62 to I, passed a resolution that Davis, 
**by his vote for the candidate of the Black 
Republicans, has misrepresented the senti- 
ments of all portions of this State, and thereby 
forfeited the confidence of her people." This 
resolve, when sent to the Senate, slept until the 
end of the session; but on February 28, after 
Davis's defense of himself on the floor of the 
House, Dr. Lynch, of Baltimore county, of- 
fered a resolve there, which he asked be refer- 
red to the Committee on the Colored Popula- 
tion, that $500 be appropriated to transport 
Henry Winter Davis to Liberia, as he has, in 
'^his late speech, most violently assailed the 
people of this State, through us their repre- 
sentatives, because of our loyalty to the best 
interests of the South." McKaig said that if 
the person named were a worthy colored man, 
he would vote for the appropriation, but he 
knew no white man by that name worthy of 
the notice of the Senate of Maryland. The 
Senator from Frederick said he refused, as a 
matter of privilege, to vote on any measure 
applauding or censuring Congressmen, as they 
are responsible to their constituents. 

The Senate felt that Lynch's proposition 
10 



146 HENRY WINTER DAVIS 

was so unbecoming that, finally, the proposer 
himself secured unanimous consent to strike it 
from the journal. 

On February 21, i860, when the House was 
in Committee of the Whole, Davis seized the 
opportunity to set forth his opinions of the 
resolutions and of ''their contrivers and sup- 
porters" ^ in a superb oration. With scornful 
sarcasm, he began: ''Mr. Chairman, the hon- 
orable the Legislature of Maryland has deco- 
rated me with its censure. It is my purpose to 
acknowledge that compliment." He taunted 
the Democratic majority of the Legislature as 
being like Christopher Sly in "being out of 
place in her legislative halls"; as "greatly de- 
ficient in sound, practical common sense," but 
as abounding in the "genius of ignorance," 
and as needing lawyers to attend their caucus 
to perfect the laws. "Not elevated to the full 
sense of the dignity and responsibility of their 
high place by the great memories which sur- 
round them in the State House, where daily 
they meet, where once the great Congress of 
the Revolution sat and where George Wash- 
ington surrendered his sword that the law 
might thenceforth reign — the caucus is the 
Legislature, the Legislature the recording 
clerk for the dictates of the caucus; debate is 
silenced and consideration is banished." 
Keeping the offensive, he pilloried the enact- 



CHAPTER VII— 1859-1861 147 

ments of the Legislature. ^'In the midst of 
the excitement in the country upon the Negro 
Question," men were found in the Legisla- 
ture '^anxious to follow the deplorable ex- 
ample, shocking to the sensibilities of the 
great mass of the people of Maryland, of re- 
ducing into slavery the men that our fathers 
freed." "^ ''Nothing but the unanimous shriek 
of indignation which rang from one end of 
Maryland to the other averted the danger of 
the passage of some such despotic and oppres- 
sive measure and one, seriously and rashly, 
unsettling the industrial interests of Mary- 
land." The Legislature had taken the control 
of the police force of Baltimore City from the 
municipal authorities, and Davis ardently at- 
tacked this ''flagrant usurpation." As they 
boasted themselves the "sole guardians in 
Maryland" of "Southern rights," they had put 
"cap and bells" on the bill by incorporating 
therein a proviso that "no Black Republican, 
or indorser or supporter of the Helper book, 
shall be appointed to any office" by the Police 
Board. 

On this provision Davis emptied the vials 
of his wrath; while he held up to equal exe- 
cration and to ridicule a similar provision 
found in the recent charter of the Baltimore 
Street Railway Company, prohibiting any 
"Black Republican or indorser or approver 



148 HENRY WINTER DAVIS 

of the Helper book" from receiving any of the 
benefits of or privileges of this act" Then he 
turned to the examination of the resolution of 
censure. Prior to the election of Speaker of 
the House of Representatives, a resolution 
had passed the House of Delegates ^'which 
was intended to condemn beforehand any vote 
which should not be" for a Democrat, but 
Davis truly asserted ''that all they could do 
w^ould not make me waver one hair's breadth 
from what they knew was my firm resolve." 
His vote for Pennington had ''recalled to 
them that they were committed to follow" the 
former resolution with "explicit condemna- 
tion." He read the first sentence, containing 
the charge that he had "misrepresented the 
sentiments of all parts of this State, and there- 
by forfeited the confidence of her people." 
Then, with superb scorn, he said: "I respect- 
fully tell the gentlemen who voted for that 
resolution to take back their message to their 
masters and say that I speak to their masters 
face to face and not through them." The 
Democrat's "whole policy is to poison the 
minds of our people against every man not a 
Democrat in the free States; to inspire them 
with distrust, apprehension and terror; to 
teach them to look on the accession to power 
of any one called by the name of Republican 
as not merely a change of power from one to 



CHAPTER VII— 1859-1861 149 

another political party, differing in principle 
and policy, but equally loyal to the United 
States, but as not far removed from such op- 
pression and danger as to furnish just cause 
of seeking revolutionary remedies. Their 
hope seems to be to retain power by the fears 
of one-half the people for the existence of 
slavery, and of the other half for the existence 
of the Union. Agitation, clamor, vitupera- 
tion, audacious and pertinaceous, are the 
weapons of their warfare." This spirit, like 
that of Milton's 'Tortress of Hellgate," stands 
^'ready for the purpose of retaining their hold 
of power, to let loose on this blessed land the 
Satan of demoniacal passion." 

Davis felt that these resolutions would have 
little effect on his ''constituency which had 
stood by me, through good report and through 
evil report," and that his act was ''not only 
approved, but honored and applauded by 
every man whose opinion I regard." As to 
that vote, "I, sir, have no apology to make. I 
have no excuses to render. What I did, I did 
on my own judgment, and did not look across 
my shoulder to see what my constituentswould 
think. I told my constituents that I would 
come here a free man or not at all, and they 
sent me here on that condition. I told them 
that if they wanted a slave to represent them, 
they could get plenty, but I was not one. I 



i^o HENRY WINTER DAVIS 

told them that I had already passed through 
more than one difficult, complex, dangerous 
session of Congress; that I had been obliged 
again and again to do that which is least grate- 
ful to my feelings; to stand not merely op- 
posed to my honorable political opponents, 
but to stand alone among my political friends, 
without the strength and support of which a 
public man receives from being buoyed up 
breast high by men of like sentiments, elected 
on like principles, and who, if there by error, 
would stand as a shield and bulwark between 
him and his responsibility. I foresaw, then, ex- 
actly as it resulted, that the time would come 
when I would be obliged again to take that 
stand; and I wanted my people to know it, so 
that if they chose to have another one, who 
would go contrary to his judgment and bend 
like a willow when the storm came, they 
might pick him out and choose the material 
tor their work." 

"Mr. Chairman, they sent me here, and I 
have done what I know was my duty." He 
then recited Mr. Pennington's record as a 
Governor of New Jersey and as a Whig in the 
day of Whig greatness, "as a man who had de- 
clined official position offered him by Taylor 
and Fillmore, who was in "favor of the en- 
forcement of every law that any Southern 
State has an interest in," and who was sound 



CHAPTER VII— 1859-1861 151 

on the protection of American industry and 
on river and harbor improvements. Penning- 
ton was a man of ''moderate views, in favor of 
silence on the slavery question, of putting an 
end to the internecine strife of sections that 
has raged for years, and therefore, of all men, 
the man to sit in that chair." Davis had ex- 
pected ''clamor over that vote," but was sur- 
prised that the Know Nothings in the Legis- 
lature, "my own friends, excepting four of 
them," voted for the resolution. In an amus- 
ing manner, he described how they allowed 
themselves to be frightened, and cried out, "I 
admire the audacity of the Maryland Demo- 
crat as much as I deplore the weakness of the 
Maryland American." 

Davis intended to "meet with all equanim- 
ity" the "obloquy attached to the course that I 
have felt it to be my duty to pursue," and re- 
membered how Clay's vote for John Quincy 
Adams as President "brought accusation 
against him." "I have sat at his feet," con- 
tinued Davis, "and learned my political prin- 
ciples from him. I can tread his path of po- 
litical martyrdom. Before any cry of Legis- 
latures or people I will not yield, they may 
pass over my prostrate body or my ruined 
reputation, but step aside I will not to avoid 
either fate." He was "aware that we all this 
day regard the negro question as that which is 



152 HENRY WINTER DAVIS 

decisive, important and controlling." '^There 
have been others at other times, equally im- 
portant, equally exciting, equally controll- 
ing." But whatever be the question, Davis 
meant always ^'to assert my independence, 
awed by no authority into acts which I disap- 
prove. 

Non civlum ardor prava jubentlum, 
Mente quatit solida — neque auster. 

''No sir, not even the south wind. Whether 
it relate to a matter of financial policy, or to 
a matter of sectional strife, no man is fit for 
this place who is not willing to take his politi- 
cal life in his hand and, without looking back, 
go forward on the line of what he regards as 
right, and, sir, whether it relates to the ma- 
terial interests of my constituents or to those 
great political interests which are supposed to 
be bound up with the existence of slavery in 
the slave States, I trust I shall never allow 
myself, by any clamor or by any storm, how- 
ever loud or however fierce, for an instant to 
be made to veer from that course which strikes 
me to be right. I am not here merely as a 
member from the Fourth Congressional Dis- 
trict of Maryland. I am not here merely to 
represent the residue of the State of Mary- 
land. I am not entitled to consult their preju- 
dices as only worthy of regard. I am bound 
to look to a wider constituency, to a higher 



CHAPTER VII— 1859-1861 153 

duty. If my duty to that wider constituency 
can be made to promote the interests of my 
local constituency, then my duty to the two 
coincides. But, sir, in the great necessities of 
public life, there have been heretofore, and 
there may be again, occasions on which I may 
be called upon, as other public men have here- 
tofore been, to make the painful decision that 
the interest of the nation requires that I shall 
disregard the opinions, unanimous, firm, re- 
peatedly expressed, of my constituency." 

The spirit which lay at the bottom of the 
resolution of the House of Delegates appeared 
tc Davis of ^'sinister import." He recited the 
^^extraordinary circumstances under which the 
election of Speaker took place." The ^'Demo- 
cratic portion of the House, day after day, 
branded the representatives of the great ma- 
jority of the people of the free States as trai- 
tors to the country, instigators of assassination, 
bent upon breaking up and destroying slavery 
in the States, carrying into the midst of our 
families the torch and the knife of the assas- 
sin and incendiary." Southern States adopted 
revolutionary resolutions, and, for the first 
time, a State forgot the Constitutional prohi- 
bition of entering into compacts with another 
and sent a messenger to Virginia, aj^pealing 
to her, by reason of the John Brown raid, ''to 
send delegates by law to a Convention of 



154 HENRY WINTER DAVIS 

States, which, if it did anything, must assume 
the form and functions of that great revolu- 
tionary Congress which took the earlier steps 
to break the bonds that bound our fathers to 
the throne of Great Britain." Davis stood 
there, ''sworn to support the Constitution of 
these United States — not of any other confed- 
eracy which a future sun may rise upon," and 
did right in voting to elect as Speaker a man 
who was a ''symbol of peace." If secession 
should come, Davis would have neglected his 
duty had he not helped to organize a House 
of Representatives competent to sanction 
measures which might be necessary; or better, 
to "avert the very possibility of collisions so 
disastrous," by the election of one under whose 
auspices "at least there is an hour before 
strife, when men may pause and become cool." 
The House of Delegates had really said that 
''anarchy had better reign than that any one 
called by the name of Republican should be 
elected Speaker." Than his vote for Penning- 
ton, there was no act of Davis's life he regret- 
ted less, "none more defensible on high and 
statesmanlike reasons, none where the event 
has more promptly indicated its wisdom." He 
believed that the calmer judgment of the 
Democrats would "soften the sweeping judg- 
ment which impeached a whole political par- 
ty of conspiracy to promote servile insurrec- 



CHAPTER VII— 1859-1861 15s 

tion." '^ohn Brown's crime" was ^'no inva- 
sion of Virginia at all, still less an invasion of 
Virginia by or from a free State. It was a 
conspiracy to free negroes, arrested in the at- 
tempt, defended with arms, stained with mur- 
ders and punished with death." Not a slave 
joined Brown voluntarily, and, though the 
crime was ''atrocious," it revealed a state of 
feeling ''on which our eyes ought to rest with 
satisfaction," for it "negatives the existence of 
any conspiracy against our peace in the free 
States of the Confederacy. Neither the plan, 
nor the execution, revealed any higher intelli- 
gence or greater power behind the crazy en- 
thusiasts who acted in the tragedy." With 
sharp insight, Davis urged the Southerners to 
permit the "keenness" with which they felt 
"this crime against the peace of a slave State" 
to "enable them to appreciate how the more 
aggravated events in Kansas influenced the 
minds of men in the free States, and fired the 
fanaticism of Brown to the point of bloody 
revenge." Davis believed that the sympathy 
with Brown was of "no political significance 
in the populous North," that his "bloody type 
of fanaticism" was "most rare among the abo- 
litionists," which body of enthusiasts "had 
never numbered ten members of the House.' " 
Sympathy with any convicted criminal was 
too common to excite surprise. Davis ac- 



1^6 HENRY WINTER DAVIS 

cepted with full faith Sherman's statement, 
reiterated by Corwin, that the Republicans 
had no ^'intention of invading the rights or 
quiet of any slaveholding State; that there is 
no design or desire to tamper with, or trouble, 
slavery where it exists; that they are willing 
to let the subject alone, if others are willing to 
let things stand as they are." He wished to 
leave unanswered any 'Vague dissertation on 
impractical theories, such as the possibility of 
property in man, or whether slavery be hate- 
ful to God," and he pointed out that, from 
1855 there had been proposed by the repre- 
sentatives of the free States no bill that was 
not ''defensive in its character; not one that 
has looked beyond retaining the Territories 
free which were already free." His conclu- 
sion was that: "We have, then, peace before 
us, if we will only accept it. The free States 
ask no new law." 

On June 2 James A.Stewart, another Mary- 
land Congressman, attacked Davis for that 
vote for Speaker which caused the election of 
a Black Republican and made the South lose 
the chairmanship of almost all committees. 
In Stewart's Eastern Shore district the people 
of all parties "utterly condemn and repudiate 
Davis's course. Davis inquired why the Sen- 
ate of Maryland did not pass the resolution of 
condemnation, and Stewart could make only 



CHAPTER VII— 1859-1861 157 

a lame reply.^ Stewart continued with the 
assertion that if Davis would go before the 
voters of Baltimore and stand by the doc- 
trines of the Republican party, he would not 
receive more votes than Fremont; for '^the 
people of Maryland are loyal to the Union 
and the Constitutional rights of the South," 
and '^they look upon the Republican party as 
hostile to the perpetuity of this Government 
and at war with the people of the country." 
Stewart did not know whether Davis sub- 
scribed to the doctrines of the Republican 
party and wished to know where to locate him, 
but Davis deigned to make him no reply. 

Blaine wrote of this brilliant defence that, 
for '^eloquence of expression, force and con- 
clusiveness of reasoning, it is entitled to rank 
in the political classics of America as Burke's 
address to the electors of Bristol does among 
those of England." It was Davis's chief ap- 
pearance on the floor of the House at this ses- 
sion. 

He opposed assessing a duty on wool 
upon the American, instead of upon the for- 
eign valuation, because the same principle was 
not elsewhere carried out in the law and be- 
cause it was difficult to fix upon a reasonable 
average as to cleanliness, or to cleanse wool in 
the custom house.^ He urged an appropria- 
tion of $10,000 for repairs needed at the Bal- 



158 HENRY WINTER DAVIS 

timore Custom House ^ on account of fire, and 
that the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad be per- 
mitted to extend its tracks through certain 
streets in Washington and to build a bridge 
over the Potomac River/ He refused to sup- 
port the Pacific Railroad bill, though it pro- 
posed an object which lay very near his heart,^ 
because the charter was given to a voluntary 
association, without a grant of eminent do- 
main. The 'Vork can be accomplished only 
by a corporation, or by direct action of the 
Government, w^hich method I prefer." He 
hesitated to '^create a corporation, holding 
such stupendous power," and proposed that 
the work be subdivided among corporations, 
each of which should be coextensive with a 
State, and thus the influence of a non-resident 
corporation would be prevented. 

Believing that sailing vessels were of no 
value,^ he advocated fitting up as many as pos- 
sible of those contained in the navy with auxil- 
iary steam power. He opposed meddling with 
the arrangement of studies at West Point,^° 
and moved to strike out an appropriation for 
barracks at Camp Cooper and at Fort Mon- 
roe, where he had been recently, since the 
means of the Government were so scanty. He 
also opposed, on behalf of ' the Ways and 
Means Committee, an appropriation for the 
payment of volunteers called into service in 



CHAPTER VII— 1859-1861 159 

Kansas in 1856, and the establishment of a 
post in the Red River Valley, for which there 
had been no recommendation from the War 
Department. ^'The fact that Indians in that 
locality kill and scalp each other is no valid 
reason why the Government should appropri- 
ate money to build a fort for the protection of 
the whites." On the other hand, he favored 
an appropriation for the purchase of ord- 
nance, since the result of ''any military opera- 
tion hereafter is, in great measure, dependent 
on being able to compete with any nation of 
the world in the improved arms of modern 
warfare." '' 

At the Chicago convention of the Republi- 
can party in i860 eight votes were cast for 
Davis as Vice-President on the first ballot,^^ 
and we cannot but regret that such a sound 
anti-slavery man and a Border State Unionist 
was not named to make the campaign with 
Lincoln and to lessen the force of the charge 
that the Republican was a sectional party.^^ 
When Wilmot, of Pennsylvania, moved not to 
receive the delegates from Maryland to the 
convention, Cleveland, of Connecticut, made 
the convincing reply that ''but for Davis, of 
Maryland, our hopes of victory in the strug- 
gle to organize the House of Representatives 
would have been dashed to pieces, yet we 
haggled over giving Maryland a vote." ^* 



i6o HENRY WINTER DAVIS 

During the Presidential campaign Davis 
made an important speech to the voters of the 
Fourth Congressional District/^ He began 
with expressing his joy ^'over the dissolution 
of the Democratic party," which had pro- 
claimed that, upon its integrity, '^depended 
the integrity of the Union." Davis asserted 
that the Democratic party had pushed the 
country near ''the brink of the precipice of 
disunion," and then, after reciting the record 
of Maryland in voting for Scott and for Fill- 
more, Presidential candidates opposed to the 
Democrats, urged his auditors to vote for Bell 
and Everett. ''The most important of all 
things" was a "change in the government, with 
which the Democratic party was not fit to be 
entrusted." The firing on the election mob in 
Washington, the subjecting of the people of 
Kansas to military rule, the "weak wielding" 
of power against the Mormons in Utah, the 
expedition to Paraguay, the illegal firing on 
neutral vessels near Vera Cruz, the attempt of 
Democrats in Congress to have the President 
seize the States of Chihuahua and Sonora, all 
these things show that that party has forgot- 
ten "all the limitations upon the executive 
power, and they are grasping at the right to 
wield the sword at the pleasure of the Presi- 
dent." Furthermore, the swelling of the ex- 
penses of the Government, in a time of com- 



CHAPTER VII— 1859-1861 161 

mercial panic, proved their incapacity, as did 
the incurring of a public debt in a time of 
profound peace, the corruption of the civil 
service, the ^'reckless use of public money in 
the elections," the veto of Morrill's Agricul- 
tural College bill, and the "failure to remodel 
the tariff so as to protect all the varied inter- 
ests of American industry." Davis believed 
that the Democrats should be ousted from 
power, so that the administration might '^give 
us the laws which are essential to the pros- 
perity of the industry of the country," build 
the Pacific railroad, '^reinstate the system of 
improvement of rivers and harbors," reorga- 
nize the navy, and place the army upon a 
proper footing. These reforms will never be 
accomplished by the Democratic party; for, 
so long as it ''shall remain in power, so long 
there will be nothing but one eternal howl on 
the negro question to keep themselves in." 

Through his arduous public duties Davis 
had been unable to attend a public meeting be- 
fore this one, but he had kept his eye upon the 
current of public affairs. With absolute truth, 
he told his audience that he was not "fright- 
ened by popular clamor," nor "eaten up by 
any personal ambition that would lead me to 
hide, in any particular, any opinion of mine." 
He referred to his vote for Pennington, which 
he would repeat, if it were necessary. He 
11 



i62 HENRY WINTER DAVIS 

could not be induced, by '^any amount of in- 
timidation or threat or insinuation," to '^make 
any combination with a Democrat." ^'I will 
do everything that is honorable to elect John 
Bell." The Democratic party had "two wings, 
but no body," and the opposition, '^representing 
the great body of the once powerful and dom- 
inant Whig party," was also divided from top 
to bottom. This was a great misfortune, for 
neither Lincoln nor Bell, if chosen President, 
could carry on the Government without the 
united support of these members of Congress 
who opposed the Democrats. The ''oblitera- 
tion of the lines of demarcation" between fol- 
lowers of Bell and of Lincoln must be striven 
for. Davis was "for that party really of the 
Union and of the Constitution — a party united 
and powerful over the whole Republic, de- 
voted to the interests of the whole country — 
which will inflict wrong or insult on the sen- 
timents, the feelings, the rights, the interests 
of none." He warned men not "to excite pas- 
sions or fears wantonly, for it is difficult to 
calm excited passions or fears." Davis yield- 
ed to "none in devotion to the interests" of 
Bell, but in eloquent phrases declared that he 
would never allow himself to "join in a 
clamor" against the Republicans, "which I 
know to be baseless, which I believe to be in a 
great measure dishonest, and which I am con- 



CHAPTER VII— 1859-1861 163 

vinced is dangerous to the best interests of the 
country." The North was not '^filled with 
John Browns," the Republicans were not 
"traitors to the Constitution, hostile to your 
interests, bent on servile insurrection, endeav- 
oring to invade your State institutions and 
make your families insecure and your lives a 
torment." Those who spread these ideas "are 
playing into the hands of that element of dis- 
union which exists at the South," and which 
desired, in the event of Lincoln's election, "to 
precipitate them into a revolution." In vot- 
ing for candidates for office, "We must guide 
ourselves according to the policy we know 
they are going to pursue, and allow their ab- 
stract opinions to remain abstract opinions, 
unless they are called into active practice and 
are matters directly in issue. I say that, at 
this moment, according to the avowal of every 
party not Democratic — mark the limitation — 
according to the avowal of every party except- 
ing the two wings of the Democratic party, 
the slavery question is absolutely settled, if 
the Democracy will let it alone." Lincoln had 
even stated that the Fugitive Slave law should 
be executed. Davis believed that "the way to 
settle the slavery question is to be silent on it," 
and that there was "no ground for fear, in the 
event of Mr. Lincoln's succeeding." Mr. 
Breckenridge, the "seceding candidate of the 



i64 HENRY WINTER DAVIS 

Democratic party," holds opinions ''the most 
extreme, untenable and dangerous of all," for 
''he maintains that the Constitution of itself 
carries slavery into the Territories; that, un- 
der it, any individual has a right to carry his 
slave there without any law; and that laws 
must be passed by Congress, as they may be- 
come needful, forthe purpose of protecting it." 
The election of Mr. Breckenridge will, there- 
fore, result in a "perpetual struggle in the 
Congress of the United States by persons who 
desire to carry negroes into the Territories, 
and do not wish to do so until they are pro- 
tected by law, to secure the passage of laws by 
Congress to protect them there. There is not 
the remotest probability that such a law can 
ever be passed through both Houses of Con- 
gress. It is, therefore, an element of perpetual 
discord, perpetually tending to widen still 
farther apart the two portions of the Union." 

Douglas, in the second place, had shown 
"that the Constitution does not carry slavery 
into the Territory," that the "inhabitants of a 
Territory have themselves the absolute right 
to introduce and allow slavery, if they .see fit." 
He had the better of Breckenridge, "as a ques- 
tion of political history." The "extreme 
Southern portion of his party would not lend 
themselves to him ; they thought they had been 
dealing with a tool, and they found they had 



CHAPTER VII— 1859-1861 165 

been dealing with a master." Douglas had 
done another good thing in agreeing with 
Reverdy Johnson, who argued the Dred Scott 
case/^ in saying that the Supreme Court never 
passed upon Breckenridge's doctrine, which 
had been '^adopted by the great body of the 
Democratic party at the South." That party 
had ^4ived upon its boasted orthodoxy for the 
last twenty years," and now Douglas had 
given "again freedom of opinion," so that 
"men can speak above their breath; men can 
read history, and repeat it, without the fear of 
being tarred and feathered in any neighbor- 
hood in the South." For this service "future 
generations will owe him a debt of gratitude." 

Turning to Bell, Davis admitted that, "as a 
matter of abstract opinion," he agreed with 
Breckenridge; but, nominated by the Consti- 
tutional Union party, he stood upon a plat- 
form "in favor of things remaining as they 
are," and "of silence on the negro question." 
Everett held opposite opinions, but the "ques- 
tion is never what he may think as a question 
of law, but what he will do as an administra- 
tor of the law." He had formerly expressed 
anti-slavery opinions, but now had accepted 
a nomination of a party pledging its nominees 
"to silence, to quiet, to leaving things as they 
are, to the faithful and honest execution of 
every law." 



i66 HENRY WINTER DAVIS 

Lastly, he turned to ^'meet the question right 
in the eye," ^Svhat are the opinions of Mr. 
Lincoln?" Many persons said that, if he were 
elected, they would dissolve the Union. 
Davis did not believe that they would do this, 
but examined ''the ground upon which they 
might act and found no question open, except 
the question of the Territories, which were all 
absolutely free in point of fact." They were 
in the exact condition that they were, when 
''Clay introduced his great Compromise bill 
of 1850," with reference to territory acquired 
from Mexico. The "great wisdom of that 
compromise was that it stated that, as slavery 
did not exist nor was likely to be introduced 
therein, it was not expedient for Congress to 
provide by law for the introduction or exclu- 
sion of the institution." With masterly skill 
Davis continued, linking Lincoln's name to 
that of the revered Whig leader and claiming 
that both men thought the same with refer- 
ence "to the territory — that it is free. It is, 
therefore, needless to pass any law upon the 
subject." Quotations from Clay's speeches 
proved that he considered slavery an evil 
which "ought not to be extended voluntarily." 
Lincoln also had "no legislation to ask, unless 
legislation is asked on the other side." John 
Sherman, when he was the Republican candi- 
date for the Speakership, made a similar 



CHAPTER VII— 1859-1861 167 

"great declaration," that "there is not one sub- 
ject of sectional controversy which can pos- 
sibly arise, unless it is thrust upon us by the 
opponents." From the time of the repeal of 
the Missouri Compromise, the most extreme 
Republican propositions aimed at nothing 
more than "reinstating things as they were 
prior" to that repeal. "The struggle has been, 
on the part of the Administration, in Demo- 
cratic hands, to force slavery into" Kansas 
against the will of the people. The struggle, 
on the part of the whole body of the Northern 
people, has been to prevent slavery from being 
forced into Kansas." Davis had been "a par- 
ty to all this controversy," struggling some- 
times mistakenly to do what he thought was 
best. He summarized the history of the 
Congressional treatment of the subject to 
prove his point. The Republican platform at 
Chicago left out the provision of "the wild 
platform" of 1856, which called for laws to 
"prohibit in the Territories those twin relics 
of barbarism, polygamy and slavery," and the 
bills which Grow, of Pennsylvania, a "stiff 
Free Soiler," introduced into Congress for 
the organization of new Territories, simply 
declared, in the spirit of Clay, that nothing in 
the bills should be taken to authorize slavery, 
an "imprudent" declaration of opinion, but 
not a "law of affirmative exclusion." The men 



i68 HENRY WINTER DAVIS 

of Maryland were exhorted ''to look at the 
facts and to remember that, among the mil- 
lions of the North, there are men as wise as 
we are, as honest as we are, as well educated as 
we are, having as great interests at stake in the 
perpetuity of the Union as we have, and as 
earnestly and honestly devoted to the integrity 
of the Constitution as we are, and that they 
are not likely, deliberately, to invite civil 
war." Those who were ''furious on the negro 
question" were an "equally small minority in 
both sections." Their "power is clamor." 
The proof that the "conservative masses of 
the North" were misrepresented was shown, 
in that the Abolitionists were talking of put- 
ting a separate Presidential ticket in the field, 
and that the investigations of the John Brown 
raid, made by the United States Senate and by 
the Virginia Legislature, found no evidence 
implicating "any man holding political posi- 
tion, or aspiring to hold any position, in the 
North, with that insane performance." Even 
the Abolitionists in general, "so far from ex- 
citing rebellion, are of the Quaker's opinion, 
that it is wrong to shed blood." If Lincoln 
wins, he will let the slavery question rest 
where it is, and will agree with Bates, who 
stated that, with slavery in the States, Con- 
gress had no concern, but that Congress ought 
not to exercise the power which it had, so as 



CHAPTER VII— 1859-1861 169 

to '^plant and establish slavery in any Terri- 
tory heretofore" free, or to ''acquire tropical 
regions for the purpose of converting them 
into slave States." The Democratic party 
alone wished to disturb the status quo, to ac- 
quire additional territory in Mexico, which 
was free ; or in Cuba, which was slave. The 
threats against the Union, in the event of Lin- 
coln's election, formed "another instance of 
that persistent agitation of the slavery ques- 
tion, and appealing to men's fears and at- 
tempting to shake their nerves, which has been 
the policy, in my judgment, of the Demo- 
cratic party for a great many years past." 
Davis did not share any fear of disunion, and 
he was averse to the fusion movement against 
Lincoln, which had begun in some States. If 
there were real danger, "all parties should be 
merged in the presence of the over-ruling ne- 
cessity of the country," over the whole coun- 
try, and not merely in one or two doubtful 
States in the North. For himself, Davis said 
again that he would "do anything that is hon- 
orable to elect John Bell to the Presidency," 
but he would "not give the lie to all political 
truth by casting a vote, or half a vote, for men 
with whom I dififer on every political ques- 
tion." Fusion would not really help Bell. If 
the conditions were as grievous as the Demo- 
crats say, let them abandon their candidates, 



ijo HENRY WINTER DAVIS 

vote for Bell, the Union candidate, and cer- 
tainly defeat Lincoln. A fusion of Bell voters 
with the Democrats would probably throw 
the election into the House, where ''the in- 
sane method of assault upon and misrepresen- 
tation of Mr. Lincoln's opinions" by a portion 
of Bell's supporters, had "put an end to the 
possibility" of the Republicans voting for 
Bell. The Democratic States would not vote 
for Bell, and there would probably be no elec- 
tion in the House. ''Scenes of violence and 
tumult" might follow. Davis had gone 
through two contests in the House of Repre- 
sentatives for the election of Speaker and had 
"seen those scenes of violence; I have heard 
words of menace; I have looked, from day to 
day, to some outbreak that would drench that 
hall in blood." "By the infinite blessing of 
Providence, that danger has been averted," 
but Davis would not take the risk again of 
bringing into the House a controversy which 
the people ought to decide. The Democratic 
majority in the Senate would gladly elect one 
of that party as Vice-President, if possible, 
and, if not, may prefer to have a year of in- 
terregnum, or to elect Breckenridge as Presi- 
dent of the Senate and treat him as President 
of the United States. "When the matter goes 
to the Senate, if they see fit to make no elec- 
tion, we are pushed upon this dangerous alter- 



CHAPTER VII— 1859-1861 171 

native, a vacant or a disputed Presidency." 
Douglas, Breckenridge, or even Bell, are as 
sectional candidate as is Lincoln, for it is the 
misery of our condition that, turn wherever we 
may, we find that this infernal strife has split 
every body into a thousand pieces, and no man 
can tell where to find the piece that belongs to 
him." This condition should be faced. "There 
is a degree of timidity that is, of all things, in 
my judgment, the most dangerous in political 
life. Half the blood that was shed in the 
French Revolution was shed from sheer ter- 
ror. It was not courage, it was not ferocity, 
it was sheer terror that made them cut their 
neighbors' throats today, lest those neighbors 
should cut theirs tomorrow. That is the state 
of mind in which the conduct of too many in 
this canvass tends to throw the people of the 
United States." He concluded his address 
with an account of the destruction of the im- 
age of Serapis at Alexandria, and with the 
cry, "Gentlemen, smite fearlessly the Demo- 
cratic party. The Union will survive its frag- 
ments." 

Mindful of the dire emergency, Davis 
wrote from Washington a public letter to his 
constituents on January 2, 1861.^^ Lincoln 
had been elected; South Carolina had seceded. 
The other far-Southern States were following 
her. When Congress met in December, Davis 



172 HENRY WINTER DAVIS 

had been named as the member from Mary- 
land of the special committee, consisting of 
one Congressman from each State, to consider 
that part of President Buchanan's message 
which related to the "present perilous condi- 
tion of the country." From that close contact 
with the course of events, out of his earnest 
soul, he tried to avert a disastrous ending of 
that "drama of revolution" which had been 
opened in South Carolina. To his vision, 
"Ambitious and restless men, availing them- 
selves of factitious fear, which they have in- 
spired, and sectional passions, which they have 
inflamed, are conspiring the overthrow of the 
Government. They hope to found a Southern 
Confederacy on the fragments of the United 
States of America," and ask Maryland to join 
it, rather than to "desert the South and join 
the North." Davis replied that such was 
not the question which Maryland was "called 
upon to answer. Maryland is now joined to 
both the free and the slave States, under the 
wisest Constitution and by the best govern- 
ment the world ever saw. That government 
has never wronged her, or failed to protect 
her. The formation of a Southern Confed- 
eracy must be preceded by the destruction of 
that government. Till it is broken up and its 
armies defeated, there can be no Southern 
Confederacy. Maryland, therefore, is asked, 



CHAPTER VII— 1859-1861 173 

not whether she prefers to enter a Northern 
or a Southern Confedracy, but she is asked to 
form a coalition to break up and destroy the 
Constitution which Washington founded and 
to plunge into the horrors of a civil war for 
the purpose of creating a Southern Confed- 
eracy. That is the true question you have to 
consider, for peaceful secession is a delusion, 
and if you yield to the arts now employed to 
delude you, the soil of Maryland will be 
trampled by armies struggling for the Na- 
tional Capitol." 

Davis unhesitatingly answered his question 
by saying that '^the interests of Maryland are 
indissolubly connected with the interests of 
the United States; any division of the confed- 
eracy is to her fatal." His foresight led him 
to predict that, ^'no matter what new combi- 
nations arise, whether Maryland stands alone 
or unites her fate to any new confederacy on 
her Northern or her Southern border, she is 
utterly ruined and prostrate, for this genera- 
tion at least. When she will revive, God only 
knows. If the present Government be de- 
stroyed, Maryland slaveholders lose the only 
guarantee for the return of their slaves. 
Every commercial line of communication is 
severed. Custom house barriers arrest her 
merchants at every frontier. Her commerce 
on the ocean is the prey of every pirate, or the 



174 HENRY WINTER DAVIS 

sport of every maritime power. Her great 
railroad loses every connection which makes 
it valuable. If two republics divide the ter- 
ritory of the United States, Maryland is 
ruined, whichever she join." 

If she joins the South, ^'her slaves will 
walk over the Pennsylvania line unmolested," 
and the reopened African slave trade will de- 
stroy the value of those who may remain. 
^Tree trade will open every port, and cotton 
and woolen factories and iron and machine 
works of Maryland would be prostrate before 
E/uropean competition." Baltimore will not 
be the emporium of such a republic. ''Noth- 
ing intended for the South will ever pass Nor- 
folk, and from the West we will be severed 
by custom houses, duties and political antipa- 
thies in favor of New York." "The expenses 
of government must be doubled by the neces- 
sity of a large standing army, for all the con- 
ditions of present security will be gone; and 
a great Northern power, divided from us by 
an air line, will be an ever-impending danger. 
In the war of separation, and even after, 
Maryland will be an outgoing province, with- 
out a fortification or a natural boundary, al- 
ways overrun at the first sound of arms, in- 
capable of being defended by the weaker 
power, of which she will form a part, whose 
natural line of defense must be the Potomac, 



CHAPTER VII— 1859-1861 175 

and on this side of which no Southern army 
would venture a decisive battle." 

Joining a Northern republic would also be 
ruinous for slavery and Southern trade would 
be lost; but there can be no division of the 
Union along State lines. ^Western Virginia 
belongs to the Valley of the Mississippi. Vir- 
ginia can never withdraw from the existing 
Confederacy undivided; her western boun- 
dary will be the Blue Ridge. Maryland will 
be swayed by adverse forces, which will prob- 
ably give her northern and western counties 
to Pennsylvania; her peninsular to Virginia." 
As to Baltimore, whatever may be her sym- 
pathies ^4n the present political heats," in the 
long run her interests will decide her future 
relations. 

In spite of these consequences, men, ''madly 
bent on revolution," wish the ''convocation of 
the Legislature." Men join with them who 
are strangers to these purposes and blind to 
the results of such a session, which will "in- 
spire the revolutionists," "dishearten the 
friends of the Government" in the South, "de- 
stroy the moderate feelings of the free States," 
and "greatly embarrass the President." "The 
halls of legislation will immediately become 
the focus of revolutionary conspiracy," which 
may lead to anarchy and the flames of civil 
war, while "within its constitutional powers" 



176 HENRY WINTER DAVIS 

the Legislature can do nothing. Maryland's 
only danger is the destruction of the Union. 
Every person in Maryland is bound to obey 
the Federal laws as enforced by the Presi- 
dent. The Constitution forbids any agree- 
ment between Maryland and any other State 
for any purpose, and a convention of the cen- 
tral slave States would be an illegal and pos- 
sibly a ''treasonable assembly to levy war for 
the overthrow of the Government." "Mary- 
land is not ready to be entrapped. Those who 
propose such a convention should specify ''the 
acts, so plainly unconstitutional and so intol- 
erably oppressive to them, that they are will- 
ing to tear the Government to pieces in the 
pursuit of redress." If there are such acts, 
and the people prepare to destroy the Union, 
let them also "prepare their hearts for war, 
and their fields for desolation, and their chil- 
dren for slaughter. Let them prepare for an 
era of proscriptions, confiscations and exiles, 
to be followed by anarchy and be closed by 
the rude despotism of the sword." There are 
no sufficient causes for secession. "Will any 
one propose gravely to rush on such ruin, be- 
cause a few negroes have run away and not 
been caught — because some liberty bills have 
been passed and never acted on; because a 
mob, once in a while, has resisted an unpopu- 
lar law; because Maryland has been in a mi- 



CHAPTER VII— 1859-1861 177 

nority in a Presidential election? Are the 
people of Maryland dreaming of a revolution, 
in the event of a failure to resettle the Terri- 
torial question to the satisfaction of Southern 
secessionists?" No, '4f discontented men at- 
tempt to destroy the Government, because it 
is not changed to suit them, the right and the 
duty, the highest interest and the loyal honor 
of Maryland require her to sustain the laws 
of the United States and the Constitution, 
which are her only safety. Let us not counte- 
nance revolutionary violence to redress imagi- 
nary wrongs by impossible measures." Davis 
believed that "the firm attitude of Maryland 
is now the chief hope of peace," and that if 
the citizens of the State "firmly adhere to the 
United States against all enemies, resolved to 
obey the Constitution and see it obeyed, your 
example will arrest the spirit of revolution 
and greatly aid the Government in restoring, 
without bloodshed, its authority." 

When the report of the special committee 
of thirty-three was made, Davis addressed the 
House on February 7,^^ expressing the strong- 
est Union sentiments. Five years later Cres- 
well said: "For such utterances only a small 
part of the people of his State was on that day 
prepared. Seduced by the wish, they still be- 
lieved that the Union could be preserved by 
fair and mutual concessions.^^ His language 
12 



178 HENRY WINTER DAVIS 

was then deemed too harsh and unconciliatory 
and hundreds, I among the number, de- 
nounced him in unmeasured terms. Before 
the expiration of three months, events had 
demonstrated his wisdom and our folly." Yet 
there is small wonder that the scorching words 
with which he began his speech startled men, 
who still hoped against hope for an accommo- 
dation. Rising in his place, Davis cried: 
^We are at the end of the insane revel of par- 
tisan license which for thirty years has, in the 
United States, worn the mask of government. 
We are about to close that masquerade by the 
dance of death. The natives of the world look 
anxiously to see if the people, ere they tread 
that measure, will come to themselves." Ve- 
hemently he attacked the policy of the Demo- 
cratic administrations, which had as its result 
that ''the original ideas of the Constitution 
have faded from men's minds," so that they 
no longer remember ''that the United States is 
a government entitled to respect and com- 
mand, that the Constitution furnishes remedy 
for every grievance and a mode of redress for 
every wrong; that the States are limited with- 
in their spheres, are charged with no duties to 
each other, and bear no relation to the other 
States, excepting through their common head, 
the Government of the United States." Con- 
sequently, "unconstitutional commissioners 



CHAPTER VII— 1859-1861 179 

flit from State to State, or assemble at the na- 
tional capital to counsel peace or instigate 
war." To Davis's view, ^'the operation of the 
Government has been withdrawn from the 
great public interests, in order that competing 
parties might not be embarrassed in the strug- 
gle for power by diversities of opinion upon 
questions of policy, and the public mind, in 
that struggle, has been exclusively turned on 
the slavery question, which no interest re- 
quired to be touched by any department of 
the Government." While the people's ^'pas- 
sions, inflamed by the fierce struggle for the 
Presidency, were the easy prey of revolution- 
ary audacity, within two months of a formal, 
peaceful, regular election of the Chief Magis- 
trate of the United States, in which the whole 
body of the people of each State competed 
with zeal for the prize, without any new event 
intervening, without any new grievances al- 
leged, without any new menaces having been 
made, we have seen, in the short course of one 
month, a small portion of the population of 
six States transcend the bounds, at a single 
leap, at once of the State and the National 
Constitutions, usurp the extraordinary prerog- 
ative of repealing the supreme law of the land, 
exclude the great mass of their fellow-citizens 
from the protection of the Constitution, de- 
clare themselves emancipated from the obli- 



i8o HENRY WINTER DAVIS 

gations which the Constitution pronounces to 
be supreme over them and over their laws, 
arrogate to themselves all the prerogatives of 
independent power, rescind the acts of cession 
of the public property, occupy the public of- 
fices, seize the fortresses of the United States, 
confided to the faith of the people among 
whom they were placed, embezzle the public 
arms concentrated there in defense of the 
United States, array thousands of men in arms 
against the United States, and actually wage 
war on the Union by besieging two of their 
fortresses and firing on a vessel bearing, under 
the flag of the United States, reinforcements 
and provisions to one of them." The disloyal 
conduct of Buchanan's Cabinet appeared to 
obliterate the ^Very boundaries of right and 
wrong," and ''the doom of the Republic seems 
to be sealed, when the President, surrounded 
by such ministers, permits, without rebuke, 
the Government to be betrayed, neglects the 
solemn warning of the first soldier of the age 
(General Scott), till almost every fort is a 
prey to domestic treason, and accepts assur- 
ances of peace in his time, at the expense of 
leaving the national honor unguarded. His 
message gives aid and comfort to the enemies 
of the Union by avowing his inability to main- 
tain its integrity, and, paralyzed and stupe- 
fied, he stands amid the crash of the falling 



CHAPTER VII— 1859-1861 181 

republic, still muttering — not in my time — 
not in my time — after me, the deluge." 

Buchanan has earned the Tacitean phrase, 
'^consensu omnium capax imperii, nisi im- 
perassef; for ^'the acquisition of supreme 
power has revealed his incapacity and crowns 
him with the unenviable honor of the chief 
destroyer of his country's greatness." 

If the rebellious States are recognized, we 
"abandon the Gulf and Coast of Mexico, or 
surrender the forts of the United States; yield 
the privilege of free commerce and free inter- 
course; strike down the guarantees of the 
Constitution for our fellow-citizens in all that 
wide region; create a thousand miles of inte- 
rior frontier to be furnished with internal cus- 
tom houses and armed with internal forts, to 
be themselves a prey to the next caprice of 
State sovereignty; organize a vast standing 
army, ready at a moment's warning to resist 
aggression; create upon our Southern boun- 
dary a perpetual foothold for foreign powers 
whenever caprice, ambition or hostility may 
see fit to invite the despot of France, or the 
aggressive power of England to attack us 
upon our undefended frontier; sever that 
unity of territory which we have spent mil- 
lions and labored through three generations 
to create and establish; pull down the flag of 
the United States and take a lower station 



i82 HENRY WINTER DAVIS 

among the nations of the earth; abandon the 
high prerogative of leading the march of free- 
dom, the hope of struggling nationalities, the 
terror of frowning tyrants, the boast of the 
world, the light of liberty, to become the sport 
and prey of despots whose thrones we consoli- 
date by our fall ; to be greeted by Mexico with 
the salutation, 'Art thou also become weak as 
we? Art thou become like unto us?' This is 
recognition." ^'Refuse to recognize! We 
must not coerce a State in the peaceful process 
of secession. We must not coerce a State en- 
gaged in the peaceful process of firing into a 
United States vessel to prevent the re-enforce- 
ment of a United States fort. We must not 
coerce States which, without any declaration 
of war or any act of hostility of any kind, 
have united, as have Mississippi, Florida and 
Louisiana, their joint force to seize a public 
fortress. We must not coerce a State which 
has planted cannon upon its shores to prevent 
the free navigation of the Mississippi. We 
m.ust not coerce a State which has robbed the 
United States Treasury. This is peaceful se- 
cession." His clear vision appreciated fully 
the situation. He did not wish ''to exasperate 
the already too much inflamed state of the 
public mind;" but he insisted "that the Con- 
stitution of the United States and the laws 
made in pursuance thereof must be enforced; 



CHAPTER VII— 1859-1861 183 

and they who stand across the path of that 
enforcement must either destroy the power of 
the United States, or it will destroy them." 
He still hoped that such collision might be 
avoided, that ''the revenues may be collected 
in disaffected ports on board United States 
ships," that no vessel shall be allowed "to pass 
out unless she has papers of the United States 
on board," that postal routes may be suspend- 
ed, that courts of justice ''may be supported as 
they were in Utah," or removed to "States 
which are not disturbed." Even so clear a 
vision as his, still hoped that these "regular 
peaceful methods" would "allow time for re- 
flection." Davis believed that "the Govern- 
ment of the United States was" vested by the 
Constitution with adequate power to meet 
every emergency. It is required to guarantee 
a republican form of government to every 
State. A government whose officers are not 
sworn to supportthe Constitution of the United 
States is mere usurpation and not a republi- 
can government." The Federal Government 
has the power to "suppress insurrection," and 
"insurrections ordered by State authority will 
be suppressed as promptly as others." "If, to 
the regular execution of the laws of the United 
States, armed resistance shall be made, the 
Government has authority to disperse those 
who oppose the enforcement. This is not war. 



i84 HENRY WINTER DAVIS 

It is supporting the civil power by the mili- 
tary arm, against unlawful combinations too 
powerful to be otherwise dealt with. When 
the United States suppress an insurrection, or 
enforce the laws, they harm only those actu- 
ally resisting, and then, only so far as to re- 
move their resistance to the civil arm. Its end 
is their dispersion. The United States carry 
the Constitution before their arms; its provi- 
sions hedge their bayonets, and every weapon 
sinks when its authority is admitted." 

The war is due to the '^revolutionary fac- 
tion," long ''mingled in the ranks" of the 
Democratic party, to the "tenacity with which 
defeated politicians cling to power, and to 
the excitement of the popular mind by "fierce 
discussions upon the topic of slavery, on which 
the Southern people are so justly sensitive." 
In these discussions there have been made 
"the grossest misrepresentations of the pur- 
poses of the great body of the Northern peo- 
ple." Without a constitutional amendment, 
Davis believed that there might be peace, if 
Northern men, like Charles Francis Adams 
and Thomas Corwin, could induce the South 
to believe that there existed no purpose to dis- 
turb slavery in any State. 

Davis then proceeded to lay before the 
House the results to which the Committee of 
Thirty-three had come, "to compare the rem- 



CHAPTER VII— 1859-1861 185 

edies that the majority and the minority of 
the committee, respectively, propose, and to 
contrast the complaints and the remedies of 
the minority with themselves." 

The first recommendation was that an en- 
deavor be made to secure the repeal of the 
personal liberty laws of the States and the 
amendment of the fugitive slave law, so '^as 
not to give cause or pretext for the fears which 
it has occasioned at the North," by providing, 
in case of a claim of freedom, for a trial be- 
fore a court of the United States in the slave 
State whither the alleged fugitive is carried. 
The plan of the minority, that when ''fugi- 
tives are rescued by violence, the United States 
shall pay the value to their owner and have 
the privilege of sueing the county or district 
permitting the rescue for the amount," would 
''perpetuate," not "close the slavery contro- 
versy." 

As to Territories, the South had secured the 
repeal of the Missouri Compromise line and 
now demands that it be restored by constitu- 
tional amendment. "A more flagrant, inex- 
plicable, unintelligible case of capricious in- 
consistency is unknown to history." No law 
can be passed through Congress, "establishing 
slavery in an inch of territory where it does 
not already exist," yet this amendment stated 
that "slavery is hereby recognized as existing" 



i86 HENRY WINTER DAVIS 

south of 36° 30' north latitude. The South 
not only asks an impossible thing, but also asks 
^'the people of the North to declare that they 
have been hypocritical in their opinions, that 
African slavery is not merely unpolitic, but 
immoral, and themselves ingraft in the Con- 
stitution a doctrine which you accuse them of 
hating so eternally that they are struggling to 
destroy it, illegally and unconstitutionally." 
The only territory then owned by the United 
States south of the Missouri line was that of 
New Mexico, and the proposal of C. F. Ad- 
ams, which Davis endorsed, was to form that 
into a State, removing the subject of contro- 
versy, and to leave the residue of the terri- 
tory north of the line to the administration of 
the law. In the two months of the session 
which had passed no member had urged the 
exclusion of slavery from this Northern re- 
gion. The propositions which Davis advo- 
cated would satisfy the people, and he be- 
lieved that they would prevent Virginia from 
seceding. 

He could speak for Maryland. ^'Confident 
in the strength of this great Government to 
protect every interest, grateful for almost a 
century of unalloyed blessings, she has fo- 
mented no agitation; she has done no act to 
disturb the public peace; she has rested in the 
consciousness that, if there be wrong, the Con- 



CHAPTER VII— 1859-1861 187 

gress of the United States will remedy it; 
and that none exists which revolution would 
not aggravate." He asserted that he spoke for 
''the people of Maryland, who are loyal to the 
United States," and continued, saying: ''In 
Maryland we are dull and cannot comprehend 
the right of secession. We do not recognize 
the right of Maryland to repeal the Constitu- 
tion of the United States; and if any conven- 
tion there called by whatever authority,^° un- 
der whatever auspices, undertake to inaugu- 
rate revolution in Maryland, their authority 
will be resisted and defied in arms on the soil 
of Maryland, in the name and by the author- 
ity of the Constitution of the United States. 
A majority have no more right than a minor- 
ity. The right of a majority is a constitu- 
tional right. For the destruction of the Con- 
stitution they can have no right. We in Mary- 
land will submit to no attempt of a minority, 
or a majority, to drag us from under the flag 
of the Union." With such brave words did 
he hearten his followers. With the majority 
of the Committee, Davis saw no need to pro- 
hibit by constitutional amendment the aboli- 
tion of slavery in the forts, dockyards, and 
District of Columbia, nor of the interstate 
slave trade, nor to make these prohibitions and 
the articles touching the ratio of representa- 
tion and fugitives from labor, unchangeable. 



i88 HENRY WINTER DAVIS 

for no one proposed to change them. ''The 
question of the immunity of slavery in the 
States" appeared, however, to Davis to be 
'Very different" When slavery was estab- 
lished by a State, the "majority proposed to 
quiet forever apprehension that the North 
would destroy" the institution, and "anew to 
consecrate the principle of State rights in in- 
ternal affairs by forbidding any change in the 
Constitution affecting slavery in the States." 
Davis knew thoroughly, however, that "no 
guarantee of slavery will silence agitation, or 
the pulpit, or the press, or incendiary publica- 
tions, or incitements to revolt, or the organ- 
ized invasion of States," like John Brown's. 
Yet he also knew that the Northern people 
now disclaimed the contemplation of disturb- 
ing slavery in the States, and that if that im- 
pression could be spread throughout the South 
"the revolutionists will have few followers 
and peace and harmony will be restored to our 
people, in spite of every effort to disturb 
them." 

In the debates of the Congressional Session 
of 1 860-61, outside of the forementioned 
speech, Davis took almost no part, except to 
record his vote ^^ in favor of Major Ander- 
son's course in removing to Fort Sumter.^' He 
was active during those months in the effort to 
preserve the Union, and Blaine, a clear-sight- 



CHAPTER VII— 1859-1861 189 

ed observer, wrote in after years that, though 
Davis had not co-operated with the Republi- 
cans in i860, ''under all circumstances," he 
was a devoted friend of the Union, and that, 
''more than to all others, to him is due the 
maintenance of loyalty in Maryland." "^ 

As early as January, 1861, Lincoln was con- 
sidering Davis as a possible member of his 
Cabinet,^' and such an appointment was 
strongly urged, not only by the Union men of 
Maryland, but also by such an astute politi- 
cian from another State as Thurlow Weed.^' 
The influence of the Blair family, however, 
was sufficient to have one of their members 
named as Postmaster-General, and as Mont- 
gomery Blair was a resident of Maryland, 
there was, of course, no place for Davis. 
Blair's influence in Maryland was small, and 
he was not regarded as one of the State's lead- 
ers, so that the Border State Republicans were 
dissatisfied. As the Cabinet contained more 
former Democrats than Whigs, they claimed 
that it was not as strongly Union a body as 
Buchanan's final Cabinet, which contained 
Holt, Dix and Stanton. Lincoln, however, 
held to his decision to name Blair with such 
firmness that he said : "When that slate breaks 
again, it will break at the top.'"' The breach 
between Lincoln and Davis was never healed. 
The latter was admitted by Lincoln's ^ friends 



I90 HENRY WINTER DAVIS 

to be a ''man of too much integrity and eleva- 
tion of character to allow the imputation that 
his action on public matters was dictated en- 
tirely by feeling or caprice," but it is quite 
probable that Lincoln's failure to select a 
more representative man had its effect in 
causing Davis to distrust the President's wis- 
dom.^ 

NOTES ON CHAPTER VII. 

1. On March 21, E. J. Hall wrote Coleman Yellott, Senator 
from Baltimore City, asking him how he would have voted on 
the House resolution. He responded in a letter dated March 
28, which the Baltimore Clipper of April 3 said was a fine 
campaign document and which was published in pamphlet form, 
with the title, "The North and the South: Reasons Why Cole- 
man Yellott, the State Senator of Baltimore City, would not 
have voted to censure Henry Winter Davis for voting for Wil- 
liam Pennington for Speaker of the House of Representatives." 
Yellott said that, as a Southern man and a slaveholder, he would 
not have voted for McClernand, for he regarded the Demo- 
cratic party as a dangerous enemy to the true interests of the 
South, nor would he have voted for Pennington, because he 
was a sectional candidate. While not approving Davis's vote, 
he would not have censured him, and he pointed out the fact 
that the Anti-Slavery vote decreased from 1848 to 1852 because 
of good Whig administration. Yellott objected to emigrants 
voting on the slavery question, and was "ardently attached to the 
principles of the American party." 

2. Speeches and Addresses, 126. 

2a. Brackett, Negro in Maryland, pp. 256 ff. 

3. He said because of the Police bill and other important 
matters. Davis rejoined that the Police bill passed before his 
speech and the session of the Legislature did not end until 
March 10. 

4. I, Twenty Years in Congress, 498. 

5. Speech of May 9. 



CHAPTER VII— 1859-1861 191 

6. On May 23. 

7. On June 9, Grow, of Pennsylvania, proposed as an 
amendment that the railroad be required to connect with the 
P., W. & B. R. R. in Baltimore. 

8. On May 29. 

9. On June 11. 
10. On June 14. 

11. As chairman of the conferees on the Army Appropria- 
tion bill, he submitted a report, which the House adopted on 
June 19. 

12. A. K. McClure, "Lincoln and the Men of the War 
Time," 41. 

13. Burgess, Civil War, I, p. d-j. 

14. Globe, June 20, i860. 

15. Speeches and Addresses, 146. Davis's position is clearly 
shown by the following letter, undated, in the possession of the 
author: 

My Dear Nicholls: I think our friends have just cause to 
be disgusted with the self-constituted Union party leaders, and 
your resolution to make your own nomination for Mayor and 
not to submit to their dictation meets my hearty approval. 

I think also we are under no obligation to support the Union 
nominees unless we think it advisable so to do to save Mary- 
land from the horrors of Democratic rule, and I confess I do 
not think it possible to save the State by any other course at 
this time. Thousands who would support Lincoln will also 
support Bell, but many who will support Bell will not support 
Lincoln. 

If these parties divide the Democrats must take the State, 
and we lose Court of Appeals, the Criminal Court Judge, the 
Legislature, a Senator in Kennedy's place and the next Gov- 
ernor. Surely such consequences are too serious to be encoun- 
tered merely to spite ourselves for the insolence of the Union 
leaders. The State of Maryland cannot be carried for Lincoln; 
there should, therefore, be no Lincoln ticket in Maryland for the 
same reason that there should be no Bell ticket in New Jersey 
or Pennsylvania. Let us adhere to this policy and we will save 
Maryland from the Democrats and hold the future in our 
hands. Do nothing rashly till I see you. 
Yours, 

H. Winter Davis. 



192 HENRY WINTER DAVIS 

i6. Davis added that it was "difficult for any one who knows 
anything about the legal points really involved in the record 
before the Court to surmise how it was possible for them even 
to have gotten at it." 

17. Speeches and Addresses, 189. 

18. Speeches and Addresses, 200. 

19. Speeches and Addresses, XXIII. 

20. A self-called State Convention met at Baltimore on Feb- 
ruary 18. 

21. On January 9. 

22. On March 2, as chairman of the managers on part of 
the House, he presented the report of the Committee of Confer- 
ence on the Civil Appropriation bill. 

23. I, Twenty Years in Congress, 498. 

24. 3 Nicolay & Hay's Lincoln, 364; 9, Nicolay & Hay, 113. 
Lincoln's biographers state that Lincoln had the highest admira- 
tion for Davis, because of his conduct in the Thirty-fifth Con- 
gress. 

25. I Memoirs, 606. See Riddle's Wade, 259. 

26. Vide 3 Nicolay & Hay, 364; I Blaine's Twenty Years in 
Congress, 285. 

27. 9 Nicolay & Hay, 113. 

28. Inasmuch as Davis had supported Bell in the Presiden- 
tial campaign, a delegation of Republicans, including John T. 
Graham, who in earlier and later years was a faithful fol- 
lower of Davis, waited on Lincoln to ask that some other than 
Davis be named. They said that no one but a man who voted 
the Republican ticket in the preceding year should be named 
for office. "Why, there aren't enough of you to fill the Mary- 
land offices," replied Lincoln. "Then give each of us two 
offices," was the unabashed response. On September 20, 1864, 
after a conversation with Lincoln and Blair over men and 
things in Maryland, Welles wrote (2 Welles Diary, 153): "In 
the early days of the administration Henry Winter Davis and 
his crew had been more regarded than they deserved." I have 
found absolutely no proof of this statement. Davis's position as 
a Border State Union man, opposed to the Abolitionists, and as 
an opponent of Montgomery Blair, is shown by a story that 
Judge Hugh L. Bond told Capt. H. P. Goddard {Baltimore 



CHAPTER VII— 1859-1861 193 

Sunday Herald, March 8, 1903), that Davis was reluctant to 
call on Wendell Phillips because of his dislike for the Aboli- 
tionists, and, after he liad been induced to call, he said: "How 
can Phillips be honest and look so like Montgomery Blair?" 

Mr. J. F. Essary, in his Maryland in National History, at 
page 226, states that Montgomery Blair was for some time a 
Know Nothing, and that his departure from that political party 
caused the beginning of the hostility between him and Davis. 
Mr. John T. Graham, who was a prominent member of the 
American party and close friend of Davis, stated in December, 
191 5, that if Blair was ever a Know Nothing, he was very 
quiet about the matter, as Graham had never heard of it, and 
that from his close intercourse with Davis, Graham was able to 
assert positively that there was no such cause for the unfriend- 
liness the two men showed each other. 

The following letter is of interest, as showing the relation 
of the Blairs to the Maryland Republicans: 

Ofhce of the Tribune, 

New York, August 24, i860. 
Sir — You ask how I know that Frank Blair is an Emancipa- 
tionist. I answer: 

1. By the fact that he has emancipated all his own slaves. 

2. By his open avowals in many speeches that he favors 
emancipation in Missouri. You say you do not find emancipa- 
tion set forth as a principle in the Chicago platform. Of course 
not. Emancipation is an affair of the States and has no right 
to a place in the national platform. 

Yours, 

Horace Greeley". 
Jno. T. Graham, Esq., 
Baltimore, Md. 



13 



194 HENRY WINTER DAVIS 

Chapter VIII. 

SUPPORT OF THE UNION 

(1861-63). 

During the troublous weeks of the Spring 
of 1 861 no one was more outspoken than Davis 
for the Union cause, nor did any one do more to 
keep Maryland in the Union. He even took 
so extreme a stand as to write to the New York 
Tribune, with James R. Partridge and Archi- 
bald Stirling, Jr., and request that the arms, 
arsenals and forts in Maryland be placed in 
the hands of the Union men of the State. When 
Lincoln called for a special session of Con- 
gress and it was necessary to elect a represen- 
tative from the Fourth Congressional District, 
Davis at once announced himself as a candi- 
date ''upon the basis of unconditional main- 
tenance of the Union." ' He added: "Should 
my fellow-citizens of like views manifest their 
preference for a different candidate on that 
basis, it is not my purpose to embarrass them." 
He was not a self-seeker; but, as no one else 
came forward, he led the Union forces in Bal- 
timore. Four days after he proclaimed his 
candidacy, the Sixth Massachusetts Regiment 
attempted to march through Baltimore to the 
re-enforcement of Washington. During the 



CHAPTER VIII— 1861-1863 195 

dark days which followed Davis was not idle, 
but, as he wrote to William H. Seward, the 
Secretary of State, on April 28: ^'I have been 
trying to collect the persons appointed, scat- 
tered by the storm, and to compel them to take 
their offices or to decline. I have sought men 
of undoubted courage and capacity for the 
places vacated. We must show the secession- 
ists that we are not frightened, but are re- 
solved to maintain the Government in the ex- 
ercise of all its functions in Maryland." 

^'We have organized a guard, who will ac- 
company the officers and hold the public 
buildings against all the secessionists in Mary- 
land. A great reaction has set in. If we 
now act promptly the day is ours and the city 
is safe." 

For the next month and a half he car- 
ried on, without cessation, ''the most bril- 
liant campaign against open traitors, doubters 
and dodgers that unrivaled eloquence, cour- 
age and activity could achieve. Everywhere, 
day and night, in sunshine and storm, in the 
market houses, at the street corners and in the 
public halls, his voice rang out clear, loud 
and defiant for the unconditional maintenance 
of the Union." ' 

Though defeated in this contest, he never 
slackened in his efforts nor in his ''uncompro- 
mising devotion" to the Union. 



196 HENRY WINTER DAVIS 

As a leader of this forlorn hope, at the spe- 
cial election held on June 13, he was defeated 
by Henry May,^ the Conservative-Union can- 
didate, with secessionist sympathies, by a ma- 
jority of 2,048 votes out of 14,621 cast/ Dur- 
ing the canvass he openly declared himself in 
favor of coercion of the South, and frankly 
avowed that he had voted against the Critten- 
den Compromise, which was preferred by the 
people of Maryland, because he thought that 
it was impracticable and imposed terms to 
which the free States ought not to be asked to 
submit. The story is told that when the re- 
turns of the election were brought him, he in- 
terrupted the messenger, who was expressing 
regret over May's election, with the inquiry: 
^'How many votes did I get?" When he was 
told he received more than 6,000, he ex 
claimed: '^Thank God. If as many men as 
that voted for me today, I defy them to take 
Maryland out of the Union." 

In the political campaign during the Au~ 
tumn of 1 861, Davis took a leading part on 
the Union side, speaking in Baltimore on Oc- 
tober 16 in answer to an address from Union 
men, headed by Johns Hopkins,^ and at Elk- 
ton on October 26.^ The Baltimore speech^ 
is an important one. No one dreamed any 
more of peaceful secession. Cotton had been 
shown not to be king, and the Confederate 



CHAPTER VIII— 1861-1863 197 

States had failed to '^bring to their knees Great 
Britain and France" through that product. 
The Democrats of the North, '^subservient for 
a long generation to Southern dictation," had 
proven to be patriotic. The Southern Repub- 
lic had inaugurated ''an era of confiscations, 
prosecutions and exiles," yet the "partisans in 
Maryland of the men who do these things 
make our streets hideous with their howl 
about oppression, and invoke all the prin- 
ciples of the Constitution that their allies 
have spent now nearly a year in making a 
dead letter, to secure their immunity here and 
convert this heaven into their hell." Neutral- 
ity had disappeared. "The enemy is at the 
door, and the people of Maryland know that 
they who are not their friends are their ene- 
mies." "The men with secessionist sympathies 
have no right to complain. In the face of the 
mercy of the Government which they perpet- 
ually abuse, they insolently meet patient 
Union men upon the corners of the streets, in 
their counting rooms and in the parlor, and on 
the Merchants' Exchange, and wherever men 
most do congregate, and, while they writhe 
under the blow that has stricken them down 
here and taken from them the fruits of their 
treason, before they could fully enjoy them, 
their only comfort is to appeal to the future, 
to promise retribution, to intimate that assas- 



198 HENRY WINTER DAVIS 

sination may cut short those who treat them 
as traitors; that, if ever they get the upper 
hand, the lamp-post will be graced by indi- 
viduals that they name; that they will not be 
as insanely merciful as the Government of the 
United States is; and these things, while they 
venture to impeach the Government for harsh 
and oppressive measures." 

There was no sign of Southern victory, there 
was no hope of peace, though some desired it 
without honor. Davis appealed to the ''men 
of Maryland, who remember that your fore- 
fathers thought seven years of war better than 
peace with submission and degradation. * * * 
to revive the recollection of those great days 
and act upon their inspiration." The State 
had been accused of disloyalty, yet she had 
never hesitated for a moment, which was 
more than could be said for any other slave 
State, except Delaware. Governor Hicks 
was enabled to ''resist the pressing applica- 
tions for the convocation of the Legislature," 
because, "knowing the people who had elected 
him, their temper and their purposes, he felt 
that, however severe the pressure might be, 
where one person sought the meeting of the 
Legislature, there were thousands who stood 
by him in his refusal to convoke them." At 
the time of Lincoln's inauguration, "the des- 
tiny of the capital of the United States lay in 



CHAPTER VIII— 1861-1863 199 

the hollow of the hand of Maryland." ''If 
disloyalty had lain as a cankering worm at 
the heart of Maryland, then was her time," 
for "she could have presented herself before 
her Southern sisters, dowering them with the 
capital of the country, and there was no power 
that could have prevented that gift." The 
mob of the 19th of April was aroused by the 
sympathizers with secession, and the Gov- 
ernor, "suddenly smitten by an inexplicable 
terror," threw himself into the arms of his 
enemies." "One-third of the people of Bal- 
timore, under the influence of pressure and 
persuasion and delusion, and a little coercion, 
elected secessionists to the House of Dele- 
gates." Then came the reaction. No county 
supported the revolution in Baltimore, an 1 
the Union men gradually regained the upper 
hand there. In Cecil, Allegany and Wash- 
ington counties, stanch Union resolutions were 
adopted. The Legislature did not dare to put 
to a vote a bill establishing "a military des- 
potism in the disguise of a bill of public safe- 
ty." During all of April Washington was at 
the mercy of Maryland. It would have been 
at the mercy of the Confederates, had their 
leaders possessed audacity. Nearly a month 
after the mob. General Butler, with less than 
a thousand men, came to Baltimore and found 
no opposition there. With elaborate sarcasm, 



200 HENRY WINTER DAVIS 

Davis held up to scorn the record at the extra 
session of the members of that Legislature, 
who were not the '^representatives of the loyal 
and free men of Maryland," as was proven by 
the fact that at the Congressional election in 
June the Union men ''cast a great majority of 
the whole vote of the State." The Autumn 
had come, and "secession as an active, dan- 
gerous and agitating element, now lies writh- 
ing in its last agonies in Maryland." At most, 
"very nearly one-third of the people of the 
State are disloyal," and "will not take up arms 
on the Union side." He excused the failure 
of Maryland to fill her quota of troops as 
partly the fault of Governor Hicks and partly 
the fault of the War Department, which "felt 
small confidence in the Union men of Mary- 
land." Now, however, there was reason to 
believe that the Administration was convinced 
of their loyalty, and, under a new Governor 
and Legislature, Maryland would stand in the 
foremost rank of States. Davis had voted for 
Bell, who had proven a traitor, and now re- 
joiced in Lincoln's election and was "more 
earnestly anxious" for his success than for any 
other one who had "wielded power in my 
day." "This Administration, weak or strong," 
was the "last and only hope of the American 
people," and must be "supported, let what- 
ever else may fail, in spite of the contempt 



CHAPTER VIII— 1861-1863 201 

with which it had treated the people of Mary- 
land." The Administration had naturally or- 
ganized itself "on a strictly party basis," had 
underrated the importance of securing sup- 
port from the great central slave States, and 
had selected generals unequal to the needs of 
the occasion. Lincoln's policy in the Border 
States, especially in Maryland, had been con- 
spicuously weak, yet a "straightforward hon- 
esty" had "marked his every act." "The pol- 
icy of the Administration and of Congress in 
dealing with this rebellion had been eminent- 
ly liberal. The policy of the people in the 
rebellious States has been eminently illiberal 
and barbarous." Lincoln had disowned Fre- 
mont's freeing of the slaves. There was no 
danger of decrees of emancipation, and, con- 
sequently, none of servile insurrection. Davis 
believed that the "signs of the times showed 
that the wisdom of the Administration was 
becoming equal to the enthusiasm, the devo- 
tion, the liberality with which the people and 
the States have lavished men and money in the 
cause of the Republic," and that, with such 
wisdom, there would be no doubt of the suc- 
cess of the Union. "The misfortune of Bull 
Run" had "broken no power, nor any spirit;" 
it "bowed no State, nor made any heart fal- 
ter;" it "was felt as a humiliation" and taught 
the War Department that "it requires military 



202 HENRY WINTER DAVIS 

knowledge to lead a host, that it requires 
months to convert a crowd into an army; that, 
without artillery, a modern army is nothing, 
and that, without cavalry, it is a bird without 
wings; that without the means of following 
up a victory, victory is worthless." Davis 
hoped that when the ''banner once more points 
forward, it will proudly advance, until the 
rejoicing soldier shall, like Xenophon's 
Greeks at the prospect of the Euxine, after 
their weary march, greet with the cry of 'The 
sea! the sea!' the glimmering waves of the 
Gulf of Mexico." He neither wanted the as- 
sistance, nor feared the hostility of foreign 
powers. "We know that we owe them noth- 
ing but good will," but "we rely upon their 
interests and not upon their love, to let us 
alone." He had been surprised that the "great 
despot of Russia" had shown sympathy to the 
United States and would "accept the cour- 
tesy" of his "good wishes," but would "trust 
nothing to his good will ; our fate is in our own 
hands. We must not merely defeat, we must 
destroy the army before Washington. That 
will break the military power of the rebellion, 
and whenever the sword shall be stricken 
from the hand which lifted it against the 
Union, the terrors of despotic power will van- 
ish from the land and grateful eyes will turn 



CHAPTER VIII— 1861-1863 203 

in tears to greet the unforgotten banner of the 
Republic." 

Davis believed that the constitutional pow- 
ers of the Federal Government were sufficient 
for the repression of rebellion, and pro- 
claimed that belief in a speech delivered at 
Brooklyn in November,^ 1861. Webster had 
been dead only ten years, and the institutions 
whose success he believed would continue to 
distant ages, were already tottering. Many of 
the people of the North were even in search 
of a master, and ''are ready to lay their liberty 
a sacrifice on the altar of victory." When 
Webster died, ''American liberty looked 
strong and was boastful of its strength ; when 
President Buchanan left the White House, 
American liberty was like Herod, eaten of 
worms beneath his royal robes and ready to 
give up the ghost. The foundations of the 
constitutional edifice were already secretly 
sapped; the mortar was already picked from 
the stones; and when the judges of the Su- 
preme Court pronounced the Dred Scott judg- 
ment the very Caryatids of the Constitution 
were seen to bend beneath the unusual pres- 
sure and the whole edifice seemed, to thought 
ful eyes, to rush to its ruin. The sap went on 
more earnestly, more vigorously," until "the 
enemies of the republic thought their day was 
come; they rushed openly to the assault of the 



204 HENRY WINTER DAVIS 

breach they had been so long and so secretly 
preparing. Bold men thought the last day of 
the republic was come. Bad men withdrew to 
seize their part of the dismembered heritage. 
Fervid friends gathered round the bed of the 
dying patient and talked hopefully of peace- 
ful dissolutions, and when rash men whis- 
pered with bated breath of coercive remedies, 
they were put far ofif, lest the shock of the sug- 
gestion might hasten the catastrophe. "Then 
Sumter was attacked and the nation" rose 
from its bed of death and cast off its prema- 
ture grave-clothes and challenged its right to 
be a nation of history." Men cried for action 
and were summoned thereto, and in their ex- 
citement and lack of acquaintance with the 
new conditions, "they supposed that laws were 
meant for times of peace, that constitutions 
were only to be obeyed in courts of law, that 
fury might not minister arms." Such prin- 
ciples "ruled the Government in great meas- 
ure, with the people leading it on and rejoic- 
ing over every arbitrary act." No one was 
more interested in the suppression of the re- 
bellion than Davis, who knew that we "in 
Maryland would live on the side of a gulf, 
perpetually tending to plunge into its depths, 
if the rebellion succeeded." For his hearers 
it was "greatness, strength and prosperity" to 
preserve the Union ; for the Marylanders, 



CHAPTER VIII— 1861-1863 205 

"life and liberty." He had no "tenderness 
for the parricidal hands that have lifted 
weapons against the heart of the nation;" but, 
"in their grave," he did "not wish to see Amer- 
ican liberty perish," nor that the Government 
should be "driven to the necessity of inaugu- 
rating revolution for the purpose of suppress- 
ing insurrections." He objected to the decla- 
ration of martial law, to the suspension of the 
writ of habeas corpus by the President's order, 
to the suspension of newspapers, to the seiz- 
ure of telegraph. Davis held that the Consti- 
tution vested in "Congress adequate power to 
suppress the rebellion;" but vested in no one 
"arbitrary or unlimited powers for that or any 
other purpose." If the Constitutional powers 
of the Government were not sufficient, for the 
suppression of the rebellion, "the Government 
of George Washington has failed." We are 
then in the face of another revolution, and 
will be governed by the "law of Julius Caesar, 
the law of the master over the slave." Martial 
law is excluded from our system, for the Con- 
stitution does "not vest authority to declare it 
anywhere, in any body, under any circum- 
stances." He went into an elaborate constitu- 
tional and historical argument in support of 
his position, and claimed that, to allow the 
President to proclaim martial law in accord- 
ance with the will of the people, would be to 



2o6 HENRY WINTER DAVIS 

establish the ^^democratic despotism" of 
France, not ^^American republicanism." It 
would '^cause us to tread the path of the Ro- 
man republic and arrive at the conclusion of 
the Institutes of Justinian, that the will of the 
Emperor had the force of law." The Con- 
stitution had omitted nothing '^necessary to 
carry the republic through this great crisis." 
The guarantee to the States of a republican 
form of government makes it ''the duty of 
Congress to overthrow the usurping govern- 
ments in ten rebellious States," by calling 
forth the militia to execute the laws of the 
Union and to suppress insurrection. An ordi- 
nance of secession ''is so much waste paper." 
The laws of the Southern States are the acts of 
a mob, "transcending the limits of their 
power and flying in the face of the supreme 
government of the land." Congress must 
"authorize the President to use the military 
power of the republic to compel the submis- 
sion of its enemies" and to inflict such reason- 
able penalties and forfeitures as will not exas- 
perate and indurate the hostile population." 
The President is merely the "executor of the 
laws. He has authority to command the 
army, when the army exists, but it can only 
exist by the law of Congress." In the whisky 
insurrection, Washington regretted the inade- 
quacy of the law,buttook no steps outside of it. 



CHAPTER VIII— 1861-1863 207 

and, after the emergency was past, he secured 
its amendment. That law gave Lincoln au- 
thority to suppress the rebellion. Congress 
had already passed a law providing for the 
confiscation of property of rebels, used to pro- 
mote rebellion, and had declared a blockade 
of the Southern Coast. Congress had also 
placed a magnificent army at the President's 
disposal. In a few days Congress will meet 
again, and may do more. The army must 
''break down a combination of armed force/' 
and against those in arms in opposition to the 
Government, the bayonet is ''the process of 
law." The "right to use arms ceases with the 
necessity of suppressing combinations too 
powerful to be suppresed by the ordinary pro- 
cesses of law." When the army is assembled, 
it may rightfully subject the whole territory 
occupied by it "to the burden of war, at the 
w^ill of the military authority. It is not a vio- 
lation of a private right — it is the assertion of 
the right of eminent domain over the national 
territory, asserted in time of war by the high- 
est political authority, the Constitution of the 
United States." He developed this thought 
at great length, holding that, beyond the needs 
of the army, private property was as "sacred 
in civil war as in foreign war, or in peace;" 
but that Congress may legalize confiscation, 
not as a right of war, but as a "penalty at- 



2o8 HENRY WINTER DAVIS 

tached to crime.'' The right to seize persons 
in arms, or those who are aiding and abetting 
such persons, is "involved in the right to use 
military force;" yet when arrested, these per- 
sons may lawfully have the benefit of the writ 
of habeas corpus, until it be suspended by act 
of Congress. He discussed this point with 
thoroughness and quoted precedents to justify 
his position. Yet Taney went too far in his 
decision in the Merryman case, against which 
Davis cites the language of the same judge in 
the case of Luther vs. Borden, to which lan- 
guage he gives high praise. The matter is 
thus summed up by Davis: "A military arrest 
of a person engaged in the insurrection is not 
only legal, but is beyond the cognizance of the 
courts," which ''have no right to inquire into 
the subject at all." If the writ is issued, the 
military officer should not produce the pris- 
oner, but ''return to the Court the simple fact 
that the person is held by the order of the 
President for being engaged in the insurrec- 
tion," and "if the courts attempt to enforce 
the production of the prisoner," "it is the 
legal duty of the officer to resist force," as the 
arrest was "beyond the jurisdiction of the 
court." The President, Davis continued, "is 
to make war for suppression, not for punish- 
ment — that belongs to the courts. But within 
the scope of warlike operations the President, 



CHAPTER VIII— 1861-1863 209 

by the law of Congress, is paramount to the 
courts." 

Davis apologized for his long constitutional 
discussion, but the ''foundation stones of the 
republic" were ''not as polished as the col- 
umns and cornices which glitter in the sun," 
and he felt that it would take "away half of 
our republicanism to feel that we put down 
rebels by a violation of the law." He wished 
"the war to be conducted as a war ought to be 
conducted, which is to determine the life, and 
not only the life, but that which is more, the 
freedom of the American people, the reputa- 
tion of republican government, its respect, its 
enduring power, and its influence over the na- 
tions of the world." He would "respect and 
confide in the wisdom, resolutions and up- 
rightness of President Lincoln, but Presi- 
dent Lincoln is not good enough for 
my master. I will trust him with the 
administration of the laws, but I will 
not trust him to make them, nor beyond 
them." He would not add a dictatorship to 
the President's constitutional powers. Nations 
of Europe had failed in "their efforts for re- 
publican government because they are not 
Iiabitated to the restraints of law self-im- 
posed," but "it is self-control that is the great- 
ness of the American people. It is obedience 
to their own law that is their power. It is 

14 



2IO HENRY WINTER DAVIS 

because they have declared that their Consti- 
tution is the salus populi; it is because they 
adhere to the rule that the written law is the 
voice of the people; it is because they appeal 
from the hour of passion to the day of calm 
reflection, that they have proved themselves 
worthy of the liberty that their fathers con- 
quered for them." 

The campaign resulted in the election of a 
Union Governor and Legislature. To one of 
the young members of the House of Dele- 
gates, the Hon. John V. L. Findlay, Davis 
wrote a characteristic letter in January, 1862 : ^ 
^'I think you have a fine opportunity for dis- 
tinction and a flattering prospect of distinc- 
tion, if you use the opportunities and abilities 
you have with diligence, prudence and, above 
all, with absolute fearlessness at any or all 
consequences. Cowardice of mind is the 
curse of American politics, and the first con- 
dition of success is to know that victory can- 
not be won unless at risk of defeat, and he who 
is unwilling to be shot should not aspire to 
military glory." 

It is not surprising that Davis was urged 
for the United States Senatorship, and that, 
as a candidate of the radical element of the 
Union party, he was a strong competitor of 
Reverdy Johnson in the caucus during March, 
1862.^° 



CHAPTER VIII— 1861-1863 211 

About this time we find such traces of 
Davis's activity as an occasional letter about 
a political prisoner; ^^ or an appearance in a 
court-martial.^^ He kept close watch upon 
the proceedings in Congress, as is shown by 
the letters he addressed his friend, Hon. Jus- 
tin S. Morrill, then a Representative from 
Vermont, on June 6 and 15, 1862.^^ Carefully 
he distinguished between a bill of attainder, a 
'4aw performing the office of a judgment," 
rightfully forbidden Congress, and the pro- 
posed Confiscation bill. The former placed 
a ^'person just where a conviction and judg- 
ment of a court places him, nothing remains 
but execution." Bills like the latter ^'name 
no particular persons; therefore, they punish 
nobody. They declare that certain acts com- 
mitted after their passage shall be punished 
by confiscation," while a '^bill of attainder re- 
lates to the past." These proposed bills do 
not make the forfeiture dependent on a pre- 
vious conviction for treason, and so contra- 
vene no constitutional provision concerning 
that crime. ''It would be gross error to say 
that one can be deprived of liberty or life, 
otherwise than under criminal prosecution; 
for then the President has murdered many 
men in the field and enslaved many men in the 
military prisons. For men in arms, a bullet 
is due process of law; seizure by military 



212 HENRY WINTER DAVIS 

power is due process of law; they are not con- 
victions, nor trial, nor punishment of the per- 
sons; they as assuredly deprive them of life or 
of liberty as a conviction and a sheriff, and 
they are just as legal as conviction and hang- 
ing." Taxation, also, deprives the person of 
his property, not by judicial process, but by 
an administrative process, yet it is a process of 
law essential to the existence of the Govern- 
ment. The revenue laws of the United States 
have always provided for forfeitures without 
a jury for illegal acts, ''irrespective of the con- 
viction or prosecution" of the guilty person. 
The navigation laws, the laws prohibiting the 
sale of liquor to Indians, the statutes for sup- 
pressing the slave trade, ''abound in pointed 
illustrations," and the last-named statutes "are 
of special interest in relation to the confisca- 
tion of the slaves of rebels." "Slave property 
is the pretext of the rebellion and the chief 
instrument by which the revolutionists have 
coerced submission to their will. Sound pol- 
icy requires that a weapon of such power be 
broken or wrested from the hands of the ene- 
mies of the Government." The "necessary 
form of confiscation is emancipation," but the 
"release of the Government's title in the slaves 
confiscated is not to be confounded with a 
prohibition against holding any slave in the 
State." The care with which the punishment 



CHAPTER VIII— 1861-1863 213 

of treason was hedged about by the f ramers of 
the Constitution shows their ''desire to exclude 
political persecution," but does not deprive 
the Government of the power to punish the 
''acts which amount to treason under other 
names and free from those restrictions." Thus 
"the traitors who burned the Maryland bridge 
and shot the Massachusetts men on the 19th of 
April were guilty of treason, but they were 
also guilty of resisting the laws of the United 
States, and of a riot, and of obstructing mail 
routes, and for any of these crimes "may be 
punished, without the limitations placed on 
treason." 

The second letter added to the illustrations 
of the power to confiscate slaves by emancipa- 
tion, the laws of the United States in the Dis- 
trict of Columbia, which "prohibited the im- 
portation of slaves for sale or residence, de- 
clared the slave imported free, and punished 
the importer by fine." These laws were 
adopted from the laws of Maryland and Vir- 
ginia. Davis himself had "in more than one 
instance successfully asserted that claim" of 
freedom "before the courts of the District and 
of Virginia." The Compromise Acts of 1850 
embody the same principle. "The process for 
enforcing the freedom of the slave was by suit 
in the name of the negro against the owner for 
freedom, in the form of an ordinary action for 



214 HENRY WINTER DAVIS 

trespass, and the title to freedom was vested 
by operation of law, immediately on the con- 
summation of the act of forfeiture, and the 
suit was merely the judicial form of authenti- 
cating the title the law had vested." 

In the political campaign of 1862 Davis 
spoke on October 30 at Newark, New Jersey,^* 
especially attacking the peace party. He told 
his hearers that the Confederates in arms'Vill 
defy you; disarmed, they will beg for terms. 
But there are persons who are opposed to wag- 
ing a war of subjugation." To such Davis re- 
plied that if the South ^'shall persistently re- 
fuse to accept the benefits of free government 
under the Constitution of the United States, 
then this question is presented to us. If men 
perversely refuse to govern themselves under 
our laws, whether we shall, therefore, sacrifice 
our nation and our independence, permit an- 
archy because of their refusal, or govern them 
by law?" To this trenchant query he an- 
swered that "I have no hesitation in saying, 
just what meaning you place on subjection, 
that their subjection is my freedom." 

Threats had been made that the army would 
rebel if McClellan were removed from com- 
mand, and the Democrats said ''that they alone 
can carry on a successful war." In reply, 
Davis pointed to Harrison in the Indian war- 
fare, to Scott in the War of 181 2 and the Mex- 



CHAPTER VIII— 1861-1863 215 

ican War, and to Taylor in the latter war. 
The failure of the troops was due to Demo- 
cratic leadership; ^'slowness is not the way to 
prostrate this rebellion." For that end the 
audacity of Taylor is needed. The Demo- 
crats cried out against the suspension of the 
writ of habeas corpus, which had been put 
into effect in Baltimore by Generals John A. 
Dix and Wool,^^ both Democrats; while Lin- 
coln, in suspending the writ, merely followed 
in the footsteps of two Democratic leaders, 
namely, Jefferson in Gen. James Wilkinson's 
case, and Jackson at New Orleans. After all, 
^^all such hue and cry was a sham." The 
Democrats "mean to stop the war." They re- 
fer to acts 'illegal and unnecessary and here- 
after to be rebuked, but which can not now be 
rebuked without endangering the public cause 
and the safety of all." 

They complain of the abolition of slavery 
in the District of Columbia, but do not pro- 
pose to re-establish it. They complain of the 
emancipation proclamation as tending "to dis- 
turb and overthrow all the foundations of so- 
ciety in the Southern States." Davis replied 
that we are not bound "to prevent any such 
disaster, which they, the rebels, alone have 
rendered possible." If the extreme charges 
of the Democrats against that proclamation 
are true, "it is an unconstitutional act that 



2i6 HENRY WINTER DAVIS 

hurts no loyal State," and ''its illegality does 
not touch any man in any State not now in re- 
bellion." ''If the proclamation is to be effect- 
ual," however, "it must have the force of law," 
and Congress, at its coming session," should 
"recommend the adoption of an amendment 
to the Constitution declaring that no State 
shall tolerate slavery within its borders, extin- 
guishing slavery throughout the United States, 
with a provision for compensating the owners 
in loyal States." On the ratification of such 
an amendment "you will have gone to the 
root and core of the matter." 

Davis also favored a confiscation bill that 
should "touch the lands of the leaders of the 
rebellion, not for life, but in the fee simple," 
and a distribution of those lands to the "ne- 
groes who shoulder the musket." Coloniza- 
tion in Liberia "is an impossibility, and, if it 
v/ere practicable, it would not be desirable. 
The lands in the Southern States must be cul- 
tivated, and the negroes will remain there and 
will have to cultivate them." 

In his peroration he urged the people to go 
on, "with that indomitable resolution never to 
submit, or to be content with anything less 
than the subjugation of rebellion, the defeat of 
rebels, and the victorious maintenance of the 
whole republic." 

In February, 1863, Davis and his friends 



CHAPTER VIII— 1861-1863 217 

began an active political movement in favor of 
emancipation in Maryland. It was necessary 
to elect a Legislature in the fall of that year 
which should be favorable to submitting to 
the people of the State the question of calling 
a constitutional convention, which convention, 
when called, should submit to the people a re- 
vised Constitution, abolishing slavery. In the 
midst of the political campaign came the bat- 
tle of Gettysburg. On the morning of July 5 
Charles Carleton Coffin, the war correspond- 
ent, entered the Eutaw House, in Baltimore, 
and told Elihu B. Washburne and Davis that: 
''We have won the greatest battle of the war. 
I have been all over the battlefield, and the 
rebels are in retreat." In his graphic phrase: 
''The next moment Washburne and Davis 
wxre hugging each other," in the relief from 
the great strain. ^^ J. A. J. Creswell was 
Davis's chief lieutenant in the movement, and 
Davis made a vigorous campaign throughout 
the Eastern Shore, where Creswell was the 
successful Union candidate for Congress. As 
Davis had no opposition to his own Congres- 
sional election in the Baltimore district, he 
spoke for Creswell and emancipation at Elk- 
ton on October 6, at Towson on the 15th, at 
Salisbury on the 24th, at Snow Hill on the 
27th, and at Baltimore on the 28th. The 
election in November resulted in the choice of 



2i8 HENRY WINTER DAVIS 

a Legislature pledged to call a Constitutional 
Convention. 

In the important campaign of 1863 Davis 
did not limit his efforts to Maryland, but also 
spoke at Philadelphia on September 24/^ In 
his judgment, the election of a Democratic 
Conservative President would end the war 
and also the Union and the movement for ne- 
gro freedom, ''the great result, though not the 
original object of the war. If men favor the 
continuance of the conduct of national affairs 
in the hands of the Republicans, the continu- 
ance of the war until every rebellious weapon 
sinks in submission to the national authority," 
and the abolition of slavery, they must vote 
for the Republican candidates in Pennsyl- 
vania. The Democrats declared that they 
''alone can restore the Union," that it "can 
only be restored by peace and conciliation." 
Davis asked the piercing question: "They 
were in power when the rebellion broke out. 
Why did not they arrest it?" They could have 
prevented the election of Lincoln. "Why did 
they not subordinate their internal party dif- 
ferences to the patriotic purpose of averting 
an otherwise inevitable w^ar? They say that 
they alone can restore the Union, and by 
peace. Then, why did they break it up? 
They are very fond of asking who is respon- 
sible for the war, and I take great pleasure in 



CHAPTER VIII— 1861-1863 219 

responding, the Democratic party, that ruled 
the country for thirty years." The war Demo- 
crats heartily support Lincoln, and ''they who 
now arrogate to themselves the reputation and 
the name of the Democratic party are the 
mere refuse that remained behind when the 
patriotic elements withdrew for the defense of 
the nation." When it included the War Dem- 
ocrats, that party coud ''not prevent the war. 
Who will believe that this wretched remnant 
can stop the war? Why did the South rebel? 
Because they had lost the majority of the 
North." The rebellion is merely the "Demo- 
cratic party in arms in the South and in sym- 
pathy in the North. What Democrat does 
not sympathize with his Southern brethren?" 
The Democrats opposed the war "in its begin- 
ning; they have maligned it to the present 
day; they have embarrassed its progress; they 
have villified those that conduct it; they have 
struggled against every measure essential to 
its conduct. Place them in power, would they 
not effectuate their own purpose and let it 
drop? Of course, peace is their policy." "In 
each Legislature which they have elected, the 
cloven foot has appeared. No great leading 
man, calling himself a Democrat and not now 
supporting the Administration, vows himself 
in favor of prosecuting the war to the bitter 
end, till the banners of rebellion trail in the 



220 HENRY WINTER DAVIS 

dust." The Confederates are unwilling to 
give up the struggle. An armistice would be 
given only ''to argue with maniacs, to debate 
on the field of battle, or to realize the darling 
idea of the Democratic disunionists, to palsy 
the arm of the United States, to arrest the im- 
petus of its onward advance, to give the people 
in rebellion time to breathe, the men stricken 
to the knee, time to gain their feet; the men 
whose resources are exhausted, an opportunity 
to replace them, to break up the blockade, to 
open their ports to foreign commerce, to give 
them the recognition that could never be with- 
drawn, not merely of belligerents, but of par- 
ties holding a position competent to deal on 
equal terms with the United States." The 
Democrats were really, ''in plain English, op- 
posed to the farther conduct of the war," and 
had "attempted everywhere to elect disloyal 
Governors, pledged to embarrass the United 
States in the enforcement of the laws." 

Maryland and Pennsylvania have a "com- 
mon interest in this great struggle," for the 
Mason and Dixon Line, "that so long has been 
of ill omen, was abolished by the day of Get- 
tysburg" and Maryland is about to give up 
slavery, the "only mark of disunion between 
the States." The common interest of both 
States lies "in filling up the depleted ranks of 
the Army of the Potomac. Whether the Gov- 



CHAPTER VIII— 1861-1863 221 

ernment see it or not, from the beginning of 
the war to this day, there has been but one de- 
cisive point upon which one decisive battle 
could end the war, and that has been Virginia. 
It has never been a question of marching to 
Richmond; it has been a question of dispers- 
ing and destroying the army of General Lee, 
and that has never been difficult to find. 
What the Government has needed is a single- 
ness of purpose, bending its unbroken ener- 
gies to the annihilation of that army, and with 
it would crumble the Southern republic. Vic- 
tories on other points are victories of detail; 
victory on that point is decisive, final and 
overwhelming. Peace will follow the de- 
struction of that army; the war will endure 
until that army is destroyed." 'The war drags 
its length along now, because a Presidential 
election is only a year off, and the rebels of the 
South count on having their friends in office." 
Davis felt convinced that ''the way to peace 
is over the battlefield, and there is no other 
path." There are four millions of slaves in 
the South, and they should be armed against 
the "oligarchy of slaveholders." The emanci- 
pation proclamation "confers no title; it can 
only be made a title by arms." Washington, 
Jackson, Perry, Barney at Bladensburg, Banks 
at Port Hudson, Gilmore at Fort Wagner, 
bore testimony to the negro's usefulness as a 



222 HENRY WINTER DAVIS 

soldier. ''Men are men, in spite of their skin 
and deeper than their skin." Davis believed 
that no court of law would hold the emancipa- 
tion proclamation ''a valid title to freedom," 
and that it must be followed by ''a law of Con- 
gress and arms." The idea of colonization of 
negroes must be discarded. ''Make up your 
minds, gentlemen, that if they are to be sol- 
diers, they are to be freemen, with the rights 
of free laborers, protected by the laws, recog- 
nized by the United States in their position, 
guaranteed the remedies of the courts of the 
United States and armed and drilled to make 
their rights effectual." This can not be done 
on the restoration theory of the Democrats as 
to the Southern States. The "Union as it 
was" would restore West Virginia to Virginia 
and surrender the Union men in Kentucky, 
Tennessee and Missouri to the rebels. The 
American people are not "ready for such a 
restoration as that." "They delude the peo- 
ple with vain words when they speak of the 
Union as it was. Call the dead to life; clothe 
his bones with his dissolved flesh; restore the 
soul to the soulless eyes of the thousands who 
have fallen martyrs upon the battlefield, and 
then you can restore the Union as it was. The 
attempt is to begin a new civil war." Davis 
went on to discuss the other part of the Demo- 
cratic war-cry: "I am for the Constitution as 



CHAPTER VIII— 1861-186^ 223 

it is, and that has altered the Union as it was, 
and it will stay altered until eternity. And 
when I speak of the Constitution as it is, I 
mean as it came from the hands of George 
Washington, Alexander Hamilton and James 
Madison — adequate for every contingency of 
national life, speaking so plainly that those 
who run may read and only the perversely 
blind can misinterpret. Aye, the Constitu- 
tion as it is, which says that Congress may call 
forth the militia and use the armies of the 
United States to suppress insurrection and, 
therefore, the war is constitutional, according 
to the letter of the Constitution as it is. That 
Constitution says that Congress shall guaran- 
tee to every State a republican form of gov- 
ernment, and it is under the Constitution as 
it is that the armies now march to remove op- 
pression and restore republican liberty. And 
it is the Constitution as it is which declares 
that Congress shall have a right to pass all 
laws necessary and proper to carry into execu- 
tion all the powers vested in it or any other 
department of the Government, and, there- 
fore, whatever Congress may think, in its 
judgment, is necessary to restore and guaran- 
tee republican forms of government in the 
rebel States, that law, according to the Con- 
stitution as it is, Congress may pass." One can 
hardly state the Congressional plan of recon- 



224 HENRY WINTER DAVIS 

struction in clearer form, and there is no won- 
der that one holding such views came into 
conflict with Lincoln, ere many months had 
passed. Lincoln's suspension of the writ of 
habeas corpus was, at best, of doubtful consti- 
tutionality, but Congress had now suspended 
the writ and placed the '^matter on the just 
basis of law. Rational men will yield obedi- 
ence to it. None but traitorous conservatives 
will continue to howl against it. Every loyal 
man knows the President will not use it for 
oppression." 

Congress ought to have taken up the re- 
organization of the Southern State govern- 
ments at the last session; for, the sooner the 
''grounds upon which we act are ascertained, 
the better for all parties." We must not 
''speak of the Southern men in arms as alien 
enemies," for to do so is to admit that "their 
secession was efTectual, to give them the right 
of independence in the eyes of the world. I 
say they are traitors and not enemies, citizens 
under the law, against which they are illegally 
waging war, not foreigners waging a war 
upon equal terms with men who are foreign- 
ers to them. They war with the rope around 
their necks." When the rebellion shall be 
suppressed, the Southerners will not be a "con- 
quered people," nor are the States, "by rebel- 
lion, extinguished" so as to become Territo- 



CHAPTER VIII— 1861-186^ 225 

ries." The States are ^'continuing, perpetual 
elements of our Union, and their citizens ''are 
always beneath the Constitution." But Davis 
held that there was a "marked discrimination 
between the individual rights of the citizens — 
the existence of the State as a body politic and 
its capacity, by reason of its want of organiza- 
tion, to exert its political powers. If a man in 
South Carolina comes to Philadelphia, no 
lawyer can plead alien enemy to his suit. 
When the opposition is dispersed, then the 
reign of the courts is restored and the day of 
punishment may come. But, with reference 
to their political franchises, the wisdom of our 
forefathers has placed them a step farther off. 
There can be no electors of President from 
any State, unless there be a government or- 
ganized in it, recognized by the Government 
of the United States, whose officers have 
sworn obedience to the Constitution of the 
United States." The present Southern State 
officers had not carried "their territory from 
beneath the laws of the United States," but 
had "torn down" "their own State govern- 
ments and instituted others." "They are a 
band of traitors, usurping rights over citizens 
of the United States. The armies of the 
United States move to strike that power from 
their hands and restore it to loyal men, and in 
doing that the only arbiter of what govern- 

15 



226 HENRY WINTER DAVIS 

ment shall be recognized, the only arbiter of 
who shall be treated as Governor, or a legis- 
lator, or a judge of a rebel State, is the United 
States in Congress assembled. Till they shall 
recognize another government, there is no 
government." In the absence of a State gov- 
ernment, there must either be anarchy or a 
legislative and executive power somewhere. 
^'Those that have abdicated can no longer be 
the government of the State. The right and 
duty to guarantee a republican government is 
vested in Congress. Congress is, therefore, 
charged to take every measure that is neces- 
sary to restore republican government. Pend- 
ing the interregnum. Congress is the only leg- 
islative power for that State, the President is 
the only executive power for the State." In 
Virginia the administration had already ap- 
plied these principles to the circumstances. 
The emancipation proclamation would not 
stand against the wishes of the seceding States, 
when once they should be reorganized, nor 
did Davis believe that the '^Supreme Court of 
the United States will recognize it as law," 
but '4t can be helped by an Act of Congress 
in the execution of its guarantee of republican 
government, if it consider that the continu- 
ance of these men in slavery and the power of 
the masters over them is incompatible with a 
permanent consolidation of republican institu- 



CHAPTER VIII— 1861-1863 227 

tions in the States. That is a political and not 
a judicial question," and on such questions 
the ^^courts of the United States will follow 
the judgment of Congress and the President." 
^Tt is frivolous," Davis continued, '^to say that 
we can arm a million of men to prostrate half 
a million in the dust, taking away precious 
life to restore republican government; but we 
cannot restore freedom to slaves in the same 
cause. Life is protected against illegal ag- 
gression in the Constitution, as well as prop- 
erty. Life is not less sacred than slavery. 
Can we destroy life to repel from power those 
who have usurped a power to create unrepub- 
lican forms of government in the rebel States, 
and are we to be told that the power of Con- 
gress is limited with reference to that species 
of property — that it must stand a perpetual 
obstacle to free government?" That is to 
adopt the strict construction of the '^rebellious 
faction, that by coalition with Northern 
Demiocrats, has governed the country to its 
ruin for 30 years. They have always been in 
favor of tying the Government of the United 
States hand and foot, because they saw that it 
had strong feet to trample down rebellion and 
long arms to reach it." The '^barriers thrown 
up to protect the institutions of slavery," in 
Davis's eyes, were ''the deliberately prepared 
bulwarks for a premeditated rebellion." 



228 HENRY WINTER DAVIS 

''When we are done with the rebellion, there 
will be no governments, even in form, to rec- 
ognize in the slave States. Their people will 
"form a State without a political organiza- 
tion." Such organization they "can only re- 
ceive under the auspices of Congress and in 
accordance with the forms and by the laws 
that it, and it alone, shall see fit to prescribe." 
Our forefathers wisely foresaw that a great 
rebellion might arise, "and, therefore, they 
created the power to suppress insurrection and 
imposed the duty on Congress to guarantee 
republican government." Here we have no 
struggle between poor and rich, forming a 
revolution difficult to deal with, but a foun- 
dation of revolt which is a "social institution 
— the right by law, contrary to the law of na- 
ture, for one man to hold another in servitude. 
You cut up the roots of the rebellion by strik- 
ing the shackles from the slave." The slaves 
had properly been called out as soldiers and no 
ill results had followed. The Border States 
vvxre emancipating slaves. "In Maryland, 
that surrounds your capital and more than 
once had felt the tramp of the invaders — such 
is the unanimous sentiment of her people that 
her Governor has been compelled to hasten 
up his lagging opinions and proclaim himself 
in favor of emancipation, and a convention 
next year to effect it; and the only question is 



CHAPTER VIII— 1861-1863 229 

whether the enlistment of negroes will leave 
any to emancipate?" The mass of freedmen 
had shown wonderful quiet and there ha 1 
been no servile insurrections. We must not 
call negroes into the field and abandon them 
afterwards to slavery. An Act of Congress 
freeing the negroes in the revolted States, will 
place ''four millions of people in the rebel 
States, whose liberty depends upon the per- 
petuity of the Union, and for the first time 
you will have a guarantee such as you never 
had before." Some raise the cry of the dan- 
ger of negro equality. 'Tn the first place, if 
anybody is afraid of negro equality, he is not 
far from it already; in the next place, if God 
has made him equal, and only incidental cir- 
cumstances have made him unequal, you can- 
not help it; and if He has made him unequal, 
you cannot help it; and if He has made him 
unequal, by the laws of nature and independ- 
ently of the accidental circumstances, then no 
amount of demagogism, no amount of aboli- 
tion enthusiasm, can make one hair black or 
white or add an inch to his stature, intellectual 
or moral." You cannot expel the negroes, 
for the ships, the land to receive them, the 
money to remove them, the persons to supply 
their places in the South, all are lacking. 
There is little danger of their removing to the 
North. In Maryland ''we find that the slaves 



230 HENRY WINTER DAVIS 

are lazier than the free negroes." "No rebel 
State will vote to emancipate their slaves," but 
they will gladly keep the negroes as f reedmen, 
if the choice lies between that and losing them 
altogether. If the rebels be allowed to retain 
power, the Union may be restored, but "it 
will be at the loss of all the fruits of the war; 
there will be no permanent peace." He urged 
that the Union armies, which already "gird 
all the rebellion, press forward only a little 
more, and with one combined and energetic 
effort end the war in another year." "It is 
tenacity, it is endurance, it is patience, it is 
the resolution never to stop fighting until your 
enemy yields, that constitute the great quali- 
ties of nations born to rule. We are on trial 
before the nations of the world. Every despot 
in Europe curled his lips when the rebellion 
broke out, at the feeble, wretched, vacillating, 
dilapidated government that undertook to re- 
store its authority over this immense and mag- 
nificent region." Napoleon III sent troops to 
Mexico when our fortunes were at low ebb, 
and his actions, as well as those of England in 
permitting "the sailing of the Alabama and 
the Florida," and in many other ways, "fester 
and rankle till the day of account." Davis 
even incited his hearers to a future war with 
France and England, and closed his speech 
with an expression of a hope that Admiral 



CHAPTER VIII— 1861-1863 231 

Dupont might take London. Rodomontade 
one may say, yet it was the earnest thought of 
many sincere persons at that time, which 
thought, had Napoleon not retired from Mex- 
ico and England agreed to arbitrate the Ala- 
bama claims, might well have led to a terrible 
struggle. 

In New York City, Davis addressed a large 
m^eeting in the Cooper Union ^^ on October 9. 
In urging a vigorous prosecution of the war, 
he especially opposed the so-called ^Teace 
party" and maintained that there was no law- 
ful government in the rebellious States which 
the Federal authorities could recognize. 
When the armed opposition should be swept 
away. Congress must reorganize those States 
and establish a republican form of govern- 
m.ent there. He prophesied the success of the 
movement for emancipation in Maryland, fa- 
vored the enlistment of negro troops, and re- 
minded his hearers that ^'they served in the 
ranks of George Washington and Andrew 
Jackson." Although he had ^'never sympa- 
thized with the radical Abolitionists" and 
"thought them one hair's breadth this side of 
craziness," yet in this emergency, when the 
"nation is on the point of triumph" and "when 
the only thing that fires the Southern heart is 
the Opposition" in the North, he felt that the 
man who revives old prejudices, or "who now 



232 HENRY WINTER DAVIS 

utters a word for the purpose of awakening 
prejudice against any man on the side of the 
Government, is either a traitor at heart, or so 
low in intelligence that he does not know the 
conseauences of his acts." 

Three days later a dinner was given at the 
Astor House by prominent gentlemen of New 
York City in honor of the Russian Minister 
and of the Russian Admiral Lisovski, com- 
manding a fleet then in New York harbor.^^ 
Russia had been the only European power ef- 
fectively to show a friendly disposition to- 
v/ards the United States, and advantage was 
eagerly taken of the visit of the Russian fleet 
to show an appreciation of that friendliness. 
Davis was requested to respond to the toast, 
the President of the United States, and in re- 
plying thereto bore testimony, with pleasure 
and heartiness, to the "earnest uprightness of 
purpose and far-seeing sagacity with which, 
in matters more gravely complex and weighty 
than this nation since the Revolution, had ever 
been called upon to deal with," Lincoln "has 
discharged his high duty." The toast had 
stated that the nation was "solving the prob- 
lem of self-government and universal free- 
dom," but Davis asserted that that problem 
had been solved and the day of experiment 
had already passed. He referred to the hos- 
tility of England and of France. In his clos- 



CHAPTER VIII— 1861-1863 233 

ing paragraph he stated that '^history will 
show no example of an equal struggle" to the 
Civil War, 'Svithin the limits of any one na- 
tion, met with equal power, sustained with 
equal endurance, crowned with equal success, 
promising equal triumph, with that in which 
we are engaged." After these bold words the 
speech concluded with a graceful reference 
to the fact that Russian serfdom ''has vanished 
like the morning clouds" before the recent 
imperial ukase. It was a curious irony of 
events which gave the author of the Warfare 
of Ormuzd and Ahriman, and of the Davis- 
Wade Manifesto, the duty of making such a 
speech. 

NOTES ON CHAPTER VIII. 

1. Speeches and Addresses, XXV. 

2. Creswell, Speeches and Addresses, XXVI. 

3. On the disunionist position of May, see Congressional 
Globe of July 18 and 20, 1861, and War of Rebellion, Off. 
Recs., 2nd Series, vol. 2, p. 780. 

4. 3 Scharf, Md., 433. 

5. At this meeting Job Smith presided. 

6. Moore's Rebellion Record, vol. 3, p. 58, and Supp., vol. 
170. 

7. Speeches and Addresses, 224. 

8. Speeches and Addresses, 258. 

9. Quoted by Capt. H. P. Goddard in Baltimore Sunday 
Herald of March 8, 1903. 

10. (Steiner's Reverdy Johnson, 57.) Judge George M. Rus- 
sum told Capt. H. P. Goddard (vide Baltimore Sunday Herald 
or March 8, 1903) that he went to Annapolis to try to secure 
Davis's election, and was told that a fund of $25,000 would 



234 HENRY WINTER DAVIS 

ensure success. He told Davis this, and the latter indignantly 
replied that he would not give one cent. 

II. He asks for release of W. Wilkins Glenn, proprietor 
of the Exchange newspaper, as did Montgomery Blair and 
Reverdy Johnson. War of Rebellion, Off. Recs., 2nd Series, vol. 
2, p. 780, September 28, 1861, and asks that George Dent's case 
be examined, expressing no wish for his discharge, op. cit. p. 
872, December, 1861. 

12 E. g. with Milton Whitney, as counsel for Col. James 
Badger, of the Quartermaster's Department, who was tried at 
Annapolis in June, 1863, for fraud in buying coal for army. 

13. Speeches and Addresses, 292. 

14. Speeches and Addresses, 302. 

15. Gen. John Ellis Wool (1784-1869). 

16. Coffin's Lincoln, 379. 

17. Speeches and Addresses, 307. 

18. Speeches and Addresses, 341. 

19. Speeches and Addresses, 338. 



CHAPTER IX— 1863-1865 235 



Chapter IX. 

THE THIRTY-SEVENTH CONGRESS 

AND THE STRUGGLE WITH 

LINCOLN (1863-65). 

In the Spring of 1863 Davis decided again 
to be a candidate for election to Congress, and, 
fearing that Lincoln ^'might be inclined to fa- 
vor unduly the Conservative candidate,^ sought 
an interview with the President. As a result 
of this interview, Lincoln wrote Davis a letter 
on March 18, stating that ''there will be in the 
new House of Representatives, as there were 
in the old, some members openly opposing the 
v/ar, some supporting it unconditionally, and 
some supporting it with buts and ifs and ands. 
They will divide on the organization of the 
House — on the election of a Speaker. As you 
ask my opinion, I give it — that the supporters 
of the war should send no man to Congress 
who will not pledge himself to go into caucus 
with the unconditional supporters of the war 
and to abide the action of such caucus and 
vote for the person therein nominated for 
Speaker. Let the friends of Government first 
save the Government, and then administer it 
to their liking." Lincoln's lukewarm and 
somewhat Delphic utterance ^ was courteously 
received by Davis, who replied, two days later, 



236 HENRY WINTER DAVIS 

that Lincoln's letter ''will greatly aid us in 
bringing our friends to a conclusion such as 
the interests of the country require." The 
campaign, which ended in Davis's election, 
was a long and doubtful one. On Octo- 
ber 12 Judge Hugh L. Bond wrote Sec- 
retary Stanton that, in view of the canvass, he 
hoped the draft and the enlistment of negroes 
in Maryland might be postponed until after 
the election.^ 

Dr. Hosmer writes * that of the new men in 
Congress in December, 1863, ''perhaps the 
most brilliant was Henry Winter Davis, of 
Maryland, whose ardent unionism had oper- 
ated powerfully to save his State from seces- 
sion, and who, though, before the war a sup- 
porter of John Bell, was opposed to the con- 
servatives and a promoter of the war. His 
powers were conspicuous, and the highest an- 
ticipations were entertained of his eminence as 
a statesman, blasted two years later by his pre- 
mature death." 

When Congress met, on December 7, the 
Clerk had not placed the names of the Mary- 
land members upon the roll; but, in spite of 
some protests, the House, by the vote of 94 to 
74, ordered them put there. Davis at once 
had some Missouri representatives added to 
the roll, but his first important action, forbod- 
ing what was to follow, was the substitute 



CHAPTER IX— 1863-1865 237 

which he offered to Thaddeus Stevens's reso- 
lutions concerning the President's message. 
Davis moved that ''so much of the message as 
related to the duty of the United States to 
guarantee a republican form of government to 
the States in which the governments recog- 
nized by the United States have been abro- 
gated, or overthrown, be referred to a select 
committee of nine, to be named by the Speak- 
er, who shall report the bills necessary and 
proper for carrying into effect the foregoing 
guarantee." This was the entering point of 
the wedge between the Presidential and Con- 
gressional plans of reconstruction. Stevens 
did not object to the change, which was car- 
ried by a vote of loi to 80. Davis claimed 
that the original resolution ''intended to point 
to what, in the very inaccurate phraseology of 
the day, is known as reconstruction," and con- 
tinued thus: 

"Now, as I think there has been no destruc- 
tion ^ of the Union, no breaking up of the Gov- 
ernment, I carefully avoid the use of any such 
word. The fact, as well as the constitutional 
view of the condition of aft'airs in the States 
enveloped by the rebellion, is that a force has 
overthrown, or the people, in a moment of 
madness, have abrogated the governments 
which existed in those States under the Con- 
stitution and were recognized by the United 



238 HENRY WINTER DAVIS 

States prior to the breaking out of the rebel- 
lion. The Government of the United States 
is engaged in two operations. One is the sup- 
pression of armed resistance to the supreme 
authority of the United States and which is 
endeavoring to suppress that opposition by 
arms. Another — a very delicate and perhaps 
as high a duty — is to see when armed resist- 
ance shall be removed, that governments shall 
be restored in those States, republican in 
form." Davis wished to limit the investiga- 
tion of the committee to the latter question, 
and had not intended to instruct the commit- 
tee to report any particular measure. He was 
made chairman of the committee, and began 
work at once. On January 18, 1864, he asked 
to be allowed to report from this ''select com- 
mittee on the rebellious States" a bill to guar- 
anty them a republican form of government 
and have the bill made a special order. He 
failed to get the two-thirds vote needed for 
this. A few days later his own position was 
exhibited ^ in the debate on an election case, 
when he said that there was no legal authority 
to hold any election in Louisiana, and that any 
attempt to hold an election therein was an 
usurpation of sovereign authority, which was 
properly forbidden by the military authority.^ 
On February 10 he moved that the credentials 
of men who claimed election from Arkansas 



CHAPTER IX— 1 863- 1 865 239 

be laid on the table, but six days later with- 
drew the motion, as he did not wish to show 
^'an illiberal spirit," nor raise an issue with 
Dawes, of Massachusetts, who was advocating 
their admission. Because, however, it was not 
a mere question of election law, but the recog- 
nition of a State government was involved, he 
was not willing to have that recognition passed 
upon as a collateral matter. Credentials were 
"presented, not signed by any officer of any 
State government known to the United States. 
There is a rebel Legislature in Arkansas — is 
there any other? If the contestant does not 
come under that Legislature," which, we say, 
"is a body usurping the authorityof the United 
States and merely a collection of rebels, hav- 
ing no legal authority," whence does he come? 
There is "no State's government in the State of 
Arkansas recognized by the laws of the United 
States and that appears to this house, in in- 
tendment of law, or in point of fact." To ac- 
cept these credentials was to assume such a 
government. Davis wished a direct vote upon 
that question, to see if the House "will recog- 
nize as a government this thing organized 
without any authority of law, without the su- 
pervision of any official authority^ organized 
merely under the dictation of a military com- 
mander." It would be unsuitable to permit 
the Committee on Elections to take jurisdic- 



240 HENRY WINTER DAVIS 

tion of the question of the existence of a State 
government, yet recognition of the govern- 
ment is a candition precedent to the election 
of a member therefrom. ''If we recognize a 
government in Arkansas and the President 
refuse to recognize it, in what condition are 
we? If the Senate recognize a government 
and we fail to recognize it, in what condition 
are we? Or, to take the other case, if the 
President, under the pledge given in his proc- 
lamation of the 8th of December, 1863^^ shall 
see fit to recognize it as the government of a 
State and to treat it as entitled to the guaran- 
tee of the United States, and if this House, or 
both Houses of Congress refuse to recognize 
it, where are we? Can there be a recognition 
of a State government which does not unite 
the suffrages of all three political depart- 
ments?" If the electoral vote from a disputed 
State will decide a Presidential election, who 
is to be the judge of its validity? "If we are 
willing to say that State governments exist in 
all the rebel States, though the war is waged 
against us by their authority, then we take one 
view of the subject. But, if the States have 
ceased to exist, if the fact of their rebellion 
has destroyed their relation to the United 
States as governments, that is a political ques- 
tion to be determined by the President, by the 
House of Representatives and by the Senate 



CHAPTER IX— 1863-1865 241 

of the United States. Neither one of the 
three, nor any two of the three can determine 
it." Davis saw the dangers of divided opin- 
ion, which might even lead to a civil war for 
the Presidency, and, therefore, he moved to 
lay the papers on the table. He stated that 
"the President has called on General Banks to 
organize another hemaphrodite government, 
half military, half republican, representing 
the alligators and the frogs of Louisiana, and 
to place that upon the footing of a government 
of a State of the United States." Arkansas 
had thrown off her allegiance and defied the 
authority of the United States. "I think that 
the State of Arkansas is not extinguished. I 
think that no citizen of Arkansas has lost any 
personal privilege of citizenship, nor have 
they withdrawn from any responsibility to the 
Government of the United States. A State 
should exist with a government. The Con- 
stitution of the United States assumes that, 
when it compels Congress to guarantee a gov- 
ernment. The rebel government in Arkansas 
is a military government, and, therefore, not a 
republican government, and the United States 
is now engaged in removing it. When it is 
removed there will be no government in point 
of fact, as there is none in point of law. Today 
the condition of Arkansas I take to be this: 
Mere political privileges depend upon her or- 

16 



242 HENRY WINTER DAVIS 

ganization of a State government, and not 
upon the fact of her being a State. Without 
her Legislature, there are no electors entitled 
to vote for Congressmen." ^'A man may live, 
but without arms he can not well work, with- 
out legs he cannot well walk. The substance 
of the man is there, but the faculty of action 
is gone. It is the paralyzed condition in 
which the rebel States now exist." The ''con- 
stitution of Arkansas is now, by the mere ef- 
fect of the rebellion, absolutely dead and inca- 
pable of revival, except by a revolutionary 
process." The Constitution uses not the word 
may , but shall, in the guarantee clause, so that 
it is not merely a right, but a duty, for Con- 
gress. "They are bound to see that it is not 
merely a mushroom growth, under the dicta- 
tion of a military commander, or of the Presi- 
dent's proclamation. Arkansas is in the 
Union, so far that we are bound to see that 
nothing which has the form, without the sub- 
stance, of government shall control her citi- 
zens, that the loyal men of Arkansas cannot 
be governed by traitors, who call themselves 
the Legislature of Arkansas. If the people of 
Arkansas have taken steps to organize a gov- 
ernment and, upon investigation, we shall be 
satisfied that what they have done fairly rep- 
resents the masses of the people of Arkansas 
and that the thing called a government is one 



CHAPTER IX— 1 863- 1 865 243 

to which we can intrust the interests of the 
people of Arkansas and the government so or- 
ganized is one which we can say shall be 
obeyed and which we are ready to commit 
ourselves to enforce compulsory obedience to, 
then I will consider the questions of election 
law involved in this case. But it must not 
be done by this House alone; it must not be 
done by the Senate alone; it must not be done 
under the proclamation of the President, 
which so far as it is anything more than a 
State paper, is a grave usurpation upon the 
legislative authority of the United States. It 
must be done by the concurrence of the legis- 
lative and executive powers, and without that 
it is nothing. I cast no imputation upon the 
faith of the President. I impeach very seri- 
ously the legality of his proclamation." ^^ 

On January 14, 1864, when the bill to con- 
fiscate the property of rebels was under dis- 
cussion,^^ after S. S. Cox, of Ohio, had spoken 
in opposition thereto, Davis sarcastically re- 
marked that it was fortunate that the Admin- 
istration had been placed beyond the necessity 
of relying upon the support of Cox, who had 
promised to give it to all proper measures for 
^'suppression of the rebellion." The opposi- 
tion had been sent to Congress to ''oppose, to 
embarrass, to libel and break down the Ad- 
ministration," and, "when they tender sup- 



244 HENRY WINTER DAVIS 

port," Davis looked ^'at it with something of 
suspicion." It was the ''settled, resolved pol- 
icy of the Administration" to confiscate the 
property of ''some portion of the people en- 
gaged in the rebellion." Davis agreed with 
the wisdom of this policy, though he would 
confine the efifect of the confiscation "to a few 
of the leaders," and he felt that the bill abol- 
ishing the limitation of the operation of such 
confiscation to life estates was a wise one. It 
had been argued that, to pass such a bill was 
a violation of the Constitutional provision that 
"no attainder of treason should work corrup- 
tion of blood, or forfeiture, except during the 
life of the person attainted." This provision, 
Davis showed, did not apply here, for there 
was no attainder, and the Constitution limited 
in no other way "a forfeiture of the whole fee 
in lands. "^^ There being no attainder, the 
only question was whether the bill proposed 
to confiscate property without due process of 
law, and a long line of precedents supported 
the proposition that such a judgment of con- 
fiscation could be inflicted in rem. The reve- 
nue law of 1799 forfeited property brought in 
under fraudulent invoices, the navigation 
laws, and the laws against the foreign slave 
trade provided for the forfeiture of vessels, 
without regard to any proceedings against 
masters or owners, ardent spirits carried 



CHAPTER IX-1863-1865 245 

among the Indians are forfeited, and in Vir- 
ginia and Maryland the statute book long pro- 
vided that negro slaves introduced from any 
other State and from foreign countries should 
be free. In Davis's legal practice in Alexan- 
dria, in Washington, and in Baltimore he had 
frequently known cases arising under these 
laws and found that '^the law vested freedom; 
the court authenticated it," while an appeal to 
the United States Supreme Court proved the 
validity of the law, ^^forfeiting the master's 
right of property, but not indicting him of 
crime." The law for the abolition of the slave 
trade in the District of Columbia in 1850 con- 
tained a similar provision, and the ^^tradi- 
tional laws of the republic" settled it that the 
''United States Government can say that those 
who have been in arms against it shall forfeit 
their property and that the tribunals of the 
country shall enforce it in rem/' 

Early in the war, Davis perceived the im- 
portance of providing for the reorganization 
of the seceding States. During the Thirty- 
seventh Congress Davis, who was not then a 
member of the House, prepared a bill for this 
purpose, which bill provided a ^^complete 
guarantee to the people of the insurrectionary 
States that, upon certain conditions, these 
States might resume their place in the Union 
when the insurrection had ceased." He hand- 



246 HENRY WINTER DAVIS 

ed John Sherman the bill, and the latter intro- 
duced it and had it referred to the Judiciary 
Committee, which never reported it^^ The 
subject was, therefore, one upon which Davis 
had long pondered. 

On February 1 5, Davis, on behalf of the Com- 
mittee on rebellious States, asked consent to 
have a bill printed and, reporting it, had it 
read twice. A month later,^* when the House 
had refused to recommit this bill,^' Davis 
made an eloquent speech in favor of it.^'^ The 
preamble of the bil], as first introduced, is im- 
portant, since it contained the Congressional 
theory of reconstruction in its earliest form/^ 
^'The so-called Confederate States are" de- 
scribed as ''a public enemy, waging an unjust 
war, whose injustice is so glaring that they 
have no right to claim the mitigation of the 
extreme rights of war which are accorded by 
modern usage to an enemy." As a result of 
this condition, ^'none of the States which have 
joined the so-called Southern Confederacy can 
be considered and treated as entitled to be rep- 
resented in Congress, or to take any part in 
the political government of the Union." Al- 
though this proposed preamble was not adopt- 
ed, it showed Davis's position. The bill pro- 
vided for the appointment of a provisional 
Governor in each rebellious State in which 
resistance ceased, and for an enrollment of 



CHAPTER IX— 1 863- 1 865 247 

white male citizens. When a majority of 
these should have taken an oath of allegiance, 
they should elect delegates to a convention, 
which must insert in the constitution it pre- 
pared provisions preventing any prominent 
civil or military officers of the Confederacy 
from voting for or becoming Governor or 
member of the Legislature; prohibiting invol- 
untary servitude, and declaring that no debt. 
State or Confederate, created by or under the 
sanction of the usurping power, should be rec- 
ognized. After a Constitution had been 
framed by the convention and ratified by the 
voters, it should be certified to by the Presi- 
dent, who should, by proclamation, recognize 
the government established thereunder as that 
of the State, and after these events members of 
Congress and electors might be chosen from 
that State. During the provisional period, the 
laws of the United States and of the State be- 
fore the rebellion should be in force. All 
slaves were emancipated in these States, and 
the Federal courts must discharge them by 
habeas corpus writs and inflict fines on persons 
holding them.^^ 

In his speech of March 22, Davis called to 
the support of the bill ^'all who consider 
slavery the cause of the rebellion," who think 
that ''freedom and permanent peace are in- 
separable, and who are determined" to secure 



248 HENRY WINTER DAVIS 

both these ends ^'by adequate legislation." He 
believed that the bill prescribed '^such condi- 
tions as will secure, not merely civil govern- 
ment to the people of the rebellious States, but 
will also secure to the people of the United 
States permanent peace after the suppression 
of the rebellion." He urged that the bill be 
accepted both by those who thought that "the 
rebellion has placed the citizens of the rebel 
States beyond the protection of the Constitu- 
tion, and that Congress, therefore, has supreme 
power over them as conquered enemies," and 
by those who thought that "they have not 
ceased to be citizens and States, but that Con- 
gress is charged with a high political power 
by the Constitution to guarantee republican 
governments in the States, and that this is the 
proper time and the proper mode of exercis- 
ing it." If slavery is dead, let us bury it out of 
our sight. He insisted firmly that the Consti- 
tution not merely conferred a power, but im- 
posed a duty on Congress to guarantee a re- 
publican form of government. Congress pos- 
sessed "a plenary, supreme, unlimited political 
jurisdiction, paramount over courts, subject 
only to the judgment of the people of the 
United States, embracing within its scope 
every legislative measure necessary and 
proper to make it effectual, subject to no re- 
vision but that of the people." It is a political 



CHAPTER IX— 1 863- 1 865 249 

question which the Supreme Court will not 
review. 

Secession is neither domestic violence, for 
the act was ''the offspring" of the people's 
''free and enforced will;" nor invasion, for no 
foreign power attacked the South; but it is 
the act of the people of the Confederate States, 
''constituting either a legal revolution, which 
makes them independent," or a "usurpation 
against the authority of the United States." 
All parties in Congress took the latter view 
and agreed that no "rebel government" was a 
"State government within the meaning of the 
Constitution." The President and the courts 
of law concurred in this view. He cited Lu- 
ther vs. Borden, the Rhode Island case, as au- 
thority for the position that "it is the exclusive 
prerogative of Congress — of Congress and not 
of the President — to determine what is not 
the established government of the State." 
Congress was now executing its duty "by its 
arms," and was "engaged in suppressing a 
military usurpation." Success would result 
in "the overthrow of all semblance of govern- 
ment in the rebel States. The Government of 
the United States is then, in fact, the only gov- 
ernment existing in those States, and it is there 
charged to guarantee them republican govern- 
ments," which duty carried with it the right 
to pass necessary laws to accomplish that re- 



250 HENRY WINTER DAVIS 

suit and to see that ''everything inconsistent 
with the permanent continuance of republican 
government shall be weeded out." He saw no 
choice but that ''the rebel States must be gov- 
erned by Congress, till they submit and form a 
State government under the Constitution, or 
Congress must recognize State governments 
which do not recognize either Congress or the 
Constitution of the United States, or there 
must be an entire absence of all government in 
the rebel States, and that is anarchy." He re- 
jected the two latter positions, for to recognize 
a government which does not recognize the 
Constitution is absurd," and to "accept the al- 
ternative of anarchy is to assert the failure of 
the Constitution and the end of republican 
government." He found no government in 
the rebel States, except the authority of Con- 
gress, which body must "administer civil gov- 
ernment, until the people shall, under its guid- 
ance, submit to the Constitution of the United 
States, and under the laws which it shall im- 
pose and on the conditions Congress may re- 
quire, reorganize a republican government 
for themselves and Congress shall recognize 
that government." The insurrection was not 
yet suppressed, and it was not yet time to re- 
organize the State governments, but in that 
"intermediate period" Congress ought to take 
possession of the "States now in rebellion," 



CHAPTER IX— 1863-1865 251 

until a '^republican government can be estab- 
lished deliberately, undisturbed by the sound 
or fear of arms and under the guidance of 
law." 

No one State had been absolutely conquered 
and in no such State did ''enough of the popu- 
lation" adhere "to the Union to be intrusted 
with the government of the State. One-tenth 
cannot control nine-tenths. Only in West 
Virginia, and possibly in Tennessee, were 
there enough Union men to be intrusted with 
power. * * * You can get a handful of 
men in the several States who would be glad 
to take the offices, if protected by the troops of 
the United States, but you have nowhere a 
body of independent, loyal partisans of the 
United States ready to meet the rebels in arms, 
ready to die for the republic, who claim the 
Constitution as their birthright, count all other 
privileges light in comparison, and are re- 
solved at every hazard to maintain it." Davis 
maintained that the "loyal masses of the 
South" in i860 numbered a full half of the 
population. "They did not rebel, they voted 
against secession, they acquiesced in the vote 
which decreed it, they went with their State, 
they were content to accept what they did not 
prefer, but were unwilling to resist; they pre- 
ferred Union with peace, but when Union and 
peace could not exist together, they yielded up 



252 HENRY WINTER DAVIS 

the Union, rather than make war to maintain 
it." Davis did not trust these men, and he 
further asserted that no man could say that 
any respectable portion of the Southerners 
were willing to accept any terms that even the 
Democrats would offer them. He would not 
entrust the State governments to ''doubtful 
loyalty," until ''armed rebellion shall have 
been trampled into the dust" and there "shall 
be in the South no hope of independence and 
no fear of subjection, until the United States 
is bearded by no military power and the laws 
can be executed by courts and sheriffs, without 
the ever-present menace of military authori- 
ty." Until then each seceding State should 
be administered by a civil government ap- 
pointed by the President. 

He heartily approved a constitutional 
amendment prohibiting slavery, but felt that 
it was "not a remedy for the evils we must deal 
with," for it did not provide for the "civil 
administration of the States prior to the recog- 
nition of State government." 

Next he discussed Lincoln's amnesty proc- 
lamation of December 8, which "provided no 
guarantee of law to watch over the organiza- 
tion" of the new governments, which pledged 
the Executive, but not Congress, and might 
lead to a government being recognized by the 
one and not by the other, which did not satis- 



CHAPTER IX— 1 863- 1 865 253 

factorily ^^accomplish the final removal of 
slavery." The proclamation might not be 
valid; but, even if it were, it recognized 
slavery in parts of Virginia and Louisiana. 
The operation of the proclamation would be- 
come a judicial question "as soon as the State 
government is recognized," and Southern 
courts will maintain the institution of slavery, 
if possible. Davis did not ^'desire to argue 
the legality of the proclamation of freedom," 
but added: 'T think it safer to make it law." 
This would be done by the bill, ''by the para- 
mount power of Congress to reorganize gov- 
ernments in those States, to impose such con- 
ditions as it thinks necessary to secure the per- 
manence of republican government, to refuse 
to recognize any governments there which do 
not prohibit slavery forever, ''for slavery is 
really, radically inconsistent with the perma- 
nence of republican governments." The Con- 
gressional jurisdiction had "attached in all the 
rebel States" and, "until Congress has assent- 
ed, there is no State government in any rebel 
State." Davis believed that the time had 
"come, not merely to strike the arms from the 
hands of the rebels, but to strike the fetters 
from the arms of the slaves and remove that 
domineering and cohesive power without 
which we could have had no rebellion, which 
is now its animating spirit and which will die 



254 HENRY WINTER DAVIS 

when it dies." Webster might well be fol- 
lowed in his argument in the Rhode Island 
case that the '^great political law of America 
is that every change of government shall be 
conducted under the supervising authority of 
some existing legislative body, throwing the 
protection of law around the polls, defining 
the rights of voters, protecting them in the ex- 
ercise of the elective franchise, guarding 
against fraud, repelling violence and ap- 
pointing arbiters to pronounce the result and 
declare the persons chosen by the people." 
This bill applied this ''great principle of 
American political law." 

For two months the bill was before the 
House — until, on April 20, Davis announced 
that he expected to call for the previous ques- 
tion. On May 4 he moved to perfect the bill, 
by excluding therefrom the rule of one-tenth 
of the citizens as sufficient to reorganize the 
State government and by requiring a majority 
so to act.^^ On the other hand, he proposed 
to soften the operation of the clause excluding 
the officers of the State and Confederacybynot 
having it cover inferior military officers, or 
those whose duties were merely ministerial, so 
that the exclusion operated only on persons of 
dangerous political influence. Davis's views, 
backed by his speeches of unusual power, 
caused such a change in the temper of the 



CHAPTER IX— 1863-1865 255 

House that, although the Republicans were at 
first almost unanimous in favor of accepting 
Lincoln's plan, when the bill came to be voted 
upon, Davis won by a vote of 73 to 59. Dr. 
Hosmer adds, ''rarely in the history of the 
United States has eloquence produced so 
marked a result." ^° The bill remained in the 
Senate for a number of weeks. When it was 
returned to the House with amendments, 
Davis moved not to lay these amendments on 
the table, but to ask for a committee of confer- 
ence, and carried the House with him by a 
vote of 63 to 42. The bill was passed on In- 
dependence Day, on which day Congress ad- 
journed. Chandler went to Lincoln and urged 
him to sign the bill,^^ but in vain, for Lincoln 
took the ground that ''Congress has no consti- 
tutional power over slavery in the States," and 
said that, "in asserting that the insurrection- 
ary States are no longer in the Union," the bill 
made a "fatal admission that States, whenever 
they please, may, of their own motion, dissolve 
their connection with the Union. Now, we 
cannot survive that admission, I am con- 
vinced. If that be true, I am not President; 
these gentlemen are not Congress. I have la- 
boriously endeavored to avoid that question 
ever since it first began to be mooted and thus 
to avoid confusion and disturbance in our own 
counsels." For that reason he had urged the 



256 HENRY WINTER DAVIS 

passage of a constitutional amendment abol- 
ishing slavery. He maintained that ''I 
thought it much better, if it were possible, to 
restore the Union without the necessity of a vio- 
lent quarrel among its friends as to whether 
certain States have been in or out of the Union 
during the war — a merely metaphysical ques- 
tion and one unnecessary to be forced into dis- 
cussion." 

A number of years later Blaine wrote that 
the Reconstruction bill was "commonly re- 
garded as a rebuke to the course of the Presi- 
dent, in proceeding with the grave and mo- 
mentous task of reconstruction ^ without wait- 
ing the action or involving the counsel of Con- 
gress." Lincoln, however, was not in the hu- 
mor for a rebuke. ''Though the least preten- 
tious of men, he had an abounding self-respect 
and a full appreciation of the dignity and 
power of his office. He had given careful 
study to the duties, the responsibilities and the 
limitations of the respective departments of 
government, and he was not willing that his 
judgment should be revised or his course cen- 
sured, however indirectly, by a co-ordinate 
branch of the Government." ^^ 

The astute veteran statesman, John Sher- 
man, wrote in his Recollections,^* a generation 
later, that ''I have always thought that Mr. 
Lincoln made a serious mistake in defeating a 



CHAPTER IX— 1 863- 1 865 257 

measure which, if adopted, would have avert- 
ed many, if not all, the difficulties that subse- 
quently arose in the reconstruction of the rebel 
States." 

Davis's position on the Committee on For- 
eign Affairs brought him into conflict with 
Seward on the Mexican question.^' On De- 
cember 19 he secured the passage by the House 
of a resolution concerning the activities of the 
French in Mexico. On January 7 he spoke 
in the debate upon the Diplomatic bill, saying 
that the civil troubles in the United States had 
developed a deep-seated hostility in several of 
the European governments, and one of them 
had ''intruded with armed power into Mexi- 
co for the purpose of establishing upon our 
borders a monarchical government, menacing 
the institutions of the United States." Before 
the rebellion, France would not have thought 
it prudent to do this. In the judgment of the 
author of the ''Warfare of Ormuzd and Ahri- 
man," the designs of the European govern- 
ments extended "to the whole of what the Em- 
peror of the French terms Latin America, 
and, if the United States mean that their in- 
fluence shall meet European influence, wher- 
ever it may see fit to show itself in Latin 
America, then there we must have our repre- 
sentatives near all those governments. I think, 
very possibly, one gentleman might discharge 

17 



258 HENRY WINTER DAVIS 

all the ordinary duties relating to commercial 
matters among several of those governments. 
The material thing is not the protection of our 
commerce, but the representation and protec- 
tion of our political power, our political in- 
fluence and the interests of republican govern- 
ment represented and which I take it we mean 
to maintain in Central America, as well as in 
Mexico, when the time shall come.^ 

On April 4, from the Committee on For- 
eign Affairs, Davis reported a joint resolu- 
tion,^ declaring that Congress 'Vere unwill- 
ing, by silence, to leave the nations of the 
world under the impression that they are in- 
different spectators of the deplorable events 
now transpiring in the Republic of Mexico; 
and that they, therefore, think fit to declare 
that it does not accord with the policy of the 
United States to acknowledge any monarchi- 
cal government erected on the ruins of any 
republican government under the auspices of 
any European power." In a brief speech, 
supporting the resolution, Davis asserted that 
the Democratic policy towards Latin America 
was that ^'of the wolf to the lamb," frighten- 
ing ^'foreign wolves from the prey they 
marked for their own," while the Republican 
policy was ''to cultivate friendship with our 
republican brethren of Mexico and South 
America, to aid in consolidating republican 



CHAPTER IX— 1 863- 1 865 259 

principles, to retain popular government in 
all this continent from the fangs of monarchi- 
cal or aristocratic power, and to lead the sis- 
terhood of American republics in the paths of 
peace, prosperity and power." He wished to 
state the American position, ''before another 
usurper has placed his foot on Mexican soil." 

Under Davis's leadership the House passed 
unanimously this resolution, to which Rhodes 
refers, as speaking ''indubitably the opinion of 
the country," but as nevertheless "an injudi- 
cious utterance."^ It has always been a dis- 
puted point as to whether Congress should 
take any part in foreign affairs, until they 
reach a crisis where the Legislature must con- 
stitutionally be called in, and the resolutions 
then adopted were in accordance with a line 
of precedents, which have frequently since 
been followed by Congress. In spite of 
Davis's urgency, Sumner left the resolution to 
slumber in his Senate committee room.^ 

The resolution as passed by the House was 
published in the newspapers, and Seward 
feared that the French government might 
view it as an unfriendly act of the United 
States. Accordingly, on April 7, he wrote to 
Mr. Dayton, our Minister at Paris, stating 
that the relations of the United States with 
Mexico and France constituted an executive 
and not a legislative question, and directing 



26o HENRY WINTER DAVIS 

Dayton, in Lincoln's name, to tell the Em- 
peror that he contemplated no change in pol- 
icy. Seward admitted that the resolution rep- 
resented the unanimous sentiments of the peo- 
ple of the United States, but wrote that it was 
another question whether it was necessary, or 
proper, to express such a sentiment. 

Seward should rather have told Dayton 
that the resolution was a joint one and that un- 
til passed by the Senate and signed by 
the President, it should not be taken as an an- 
nouncement of the policy of the country. Be- 
fore Seward's dispatch reached Dayton, 
Drouyn de I'Huys, the French foreign minis- 
ter, read the resolve and said to our minister 
in reference thereto: ''Do you bring us peace 
or war?", when he met the latter. After read- 
ing de I'Huys Seward's dispatch, Dayton 
wrote again, stating that the difficulty had 
been settled. ^"^ As a result of this, the French 
government announced in the Moniteur that 
it had received from the United States satis- 
factory explanations in reference to the reso- 
lution passed by the House. This announce- 
ment naturally aroused Davis, who on May 23 
induced the House to ask Lincoln for the ex- 
planations he gave Napoleon. This was done, 
and on May 25 Davis had the correspondence 
referred to the Committee on Foreign Affairs. 
After two unsuccessful attempts to present the 



CHAPTER IX— 1863-1865 261 

report of the committee,^^ late in the session/^ 
he brought in a resolution statingthatCongress 
had a ^'constitutional right to an authoritative 
voice in declaring and prescribing the foreign 
policy of the United States, as well in the 
recognition of new powers as in other matters, 
and it is the constitutional duty of the Presi- 
dent to respect that policy, not less in diplo- 
matic negotiations than in the use of the na- 
tional force, when authorized by law." The 
resolution declared that ''the propriety of any 
declaration of foreign policy by Congress is 
sufficiently proved by the vote which pro- 
nounces it, and each proposition, while pend- 
ing and undetermined, is not a fit topic of dip- 
lomatic explanation with any foreign power." 
This report was adopted by the House. ^^ 

Davis spoke on May 26 in favor of termi- 
nating the reciprocity treaty between the 
United States and Canada, because it was 
"the last remnant of the old, one-sided Demo- 
cratic policy, always for the benefit of foreign 
nations." Fie also opposed the treaty, because 
it kept up a lucrative trade in coal against the 
interest of Maryland, and because the Cana- 
dians had availed themselves of it to modify 
their tariff, so as to make it injurious to us, 
without violating the treaty in terms. He op- 
posed the negotiation of another treaty, since 
"We are a heavily taxed people and Cana- 



262 HENRY WINTER DAVIS 

dians a lightly taxed one, and, therefore, abso- 
lute reciprocity" gave them the benefit of the 
difiference between the taxes and was one-sided. 
"We can not make," he continued, ''arrange- 
ments with any country for free trade, so as to 
take away the legislative discretion of Con- 
gress and render it impossible to adjust our 
internal system as the public interest re- 
quires." The Ways and Means Committee 
had been interfered with in adjusting internal 
taxation, and will be interfered with in the 
adjustment of the tariff by the exemption of 
articles by this treaty. Davis would not pass 
hostile legislation, but wished that each nation 
should ''make the law to suit its own conven- 
ience and interest," and then commerce will 
be let free, "so far as it is mutually beneficial." 
Such a treaty Davis believed, furthermore, to 
be a "direct invasion of the powers of Con- 
gress to regulate commerce with foreign na- 
tions and to lay and collect taxes, and trans- 
ferred to the President and the Senate prerog- 
atives which belong to Congress as a whole." 

Desirous of having the war brought to a suc- 
cessful conclusion, on February 3, Davis 
moved to add to the Enrollment Act a pro- 
vision that no one shall be allowed to pay com- 
mutation money except clergymen, Quakers, 
and men with dependent wife and children 
and less than $1,200 income independent of 



CHAPTER IX— 1863-1865 263 

their industry. To prevent hardship, he 
would allow, in case of any drafted man on 
whom a near relative may depend for support, 
$10 per month for each person, not exceeding 
$500 annually in any case. The money should 
be paid directly to the dependent person, or 
guardian. ''The enemy now presses our 
forces at every point within rifle shot," said 
Davis. "Any sudden breeze may bring them 
directly into collision with our depleted army. 
In any event, early in March, the armies will 
come into collision. It is, therefore, impor- 
tant, unless the United States mean to abandon 
the contest, or unless they mean to be beaten, 
directly, at the outset of the campaign, that 
they should restore their armies to an adequate 
strength to meet and overwhelm the enemy. 
A balanced campaign is a lost campaign; a 
balanced fight is for the United States a lost 
day, wasted honor, wasted time, wasted treas- 
ure." He opposed giving bounties, as he held 
that ''the Republic has a right to have the 
services of every man competent to bear a 
musket. The way, the democratic way, the 
republican way, the wise and efficient way to 
raise an army is to make every man, within the 
military ages, liable to military duty". A 
week later, he moved to strike out the pro- 
vision for the payment of $300 to each owner 
of a drafted slave, on the ground that,"if slaves 



264 HENRY WINTER DAVIS 

are liable to military duty at all, they are lia- 
ble to military duty on the same ground as 
every person (citizen or denizen), who owes 
obedience to the laws. If they owe military 
service, we owe the master nothing, for taking 
what the slaves owe. If they do not owe mili- 
tary service to the country, I do not mean, for 
one, to buy slaves for soldiers. In my judg- 
ment, they do owe military service to the Gov- 
ernment. Can anybody contend for one mo- 
ment, in the eye of reason and common sense, 
that four million men, strong, stalwart and 
energetic, and who have proved themselves on 
the field of battle to be as courageous as white 
men, more amenable to discipline and more 
inured to the vicissitudes of climate and to 
daily labor — can anybody suppose that that 
great body of men are not liable to be taken 
by the laws for the defense of our country? 
If they are, it is because they owe the duty to 
the Government and, if they do, we owe the 
master nothing for taking them."^ 

He instanced the fact that a son or an ap- 
prentice might be taken, "who is quite as dear, 
quite as necessary, quite as valuable to the fa- 
ther and to the employer," as the slave to the 
master, and he denied that a slave, necessarily, 
was made a "freeman by taking him for a sol- 
dier." ^^ 

On the next day, Davis moved ^ that "a just 



CHAPTER IX— 1863-1865 265 

compensation" be paid ^'each loyal owner of 
any slave, who may volunteer into the service 
of the United States." He did this, not be- 
cause it was ^'due at all to the owner of the 
slave," but to ratify the policy instituted by 
Lincoln in Maryland. By Davis's proposal, 
in the case of the slave, the bounty was to be 
paid to the master, on his freeing that slave; 
as it would have been paid to the white volun- 
teer himself. He differentiated this case 
from that of a negro drafted into the army; 
for, ''if the Government has the right to take 
the slave, it has the right to take him exactly 
as it takes the son, the father, or the brother of 
any citizen of the Republic, with no more 
compensation." 

Near the close of the session,^^ Davis unsuc- 
cessfully*^ advocated an amendment to the 
Enrollment bill, providing that no exemp- 
tion should be obtainable from military service 
on payment of commutation money. ''We 
want men, not money. We want men to bear 
arms." No government should allow "one 
man to pay his obligations to the Republic in 
money," while it "requires another to pay it m 
blood." He further advocated the division 
of the men enrolled as fit for military service 
into two classes, one comprising those from 
18 to 25 years of age, the other those 
from 25 to 40. Each year 25,000 men should 



266 HENRY WINTER DAVIS 

be drafted from the first class to supply de- 
ficiencies in the army, and any more men 
needed should be taken from the second class. 
The draft should not be undertaken, until 
volunteers, each of whom should be allowed 
$300 bounty, had been called for, and every 
drafted man, having persons dependent on him 
and not having $300 a year income, should be 
allowed $20 per month for such dependents. 
He advocated a draft in the occupied parts of 
the rebellious States and was willing that 
volunteers secured in these States should be 
credited to the State procuring them. With 
these provisions, Davis believed the Govern- 
ment would have ^'power to create an army, 
which, if there be only wisdom and energy at 
the White House, will be able to stamp out the 
rebellion in another campaign."*^ 

It was. proposed to establish a Bureau of 
Freedmen'sAfifairs and, as the disposition to be 
made of free negroes was a subject which in- 
terested Davis greatly, he addressed the House 
thereupon on January 25.*^ James Brooks, of 
New York, had impeached the election of 
representatives from Maryland, saying that 
if the people of the State had been allowed to 
vote, they would have elected other men, and 
Davis, immediately, denied that the people 
were prevented from voting, except those ^'who 
disavow, deny and disown their allegiance to 



CHAPTER IX— 1 863- 1 865 267 

the United States," who, accordingly, had no 
right to vote. The complaint of the inter- 
ference of the military with the elections was 
made only as to four of the eight counties in 
the Eastern Shore district. The Democrats 
had carried the Southern Maryland district 
and, in the other three districts, there was no 
opposition to the members elected, though '^a 
distinguished adviser of the President" urged 
opposition to Davis. The State was carried 
for the ^'emancipation candidate for Comp- 
troller" by 20,000 majority, and the extreme 
claims of the opposition could not cut down 
that majority by one-third. The Legislature 
in Maryland was '^overwhelmingly Union," 
but had been opposed to emancipation, until 
the election had ''carried with it such moral 
power" that a majority of both Houses were 
"compelled to pass just such a bill as we dic- 
tated to them," for the summoning of a consti- 
tutional convention. 

Slavery was not yet dead in Maryland. A 
majority of the Convention had to be secured 
"on the old slavery apportionment, where one- 
fourth of the population controlled the State," 
and it was uncertain how potent was the "hos- 
tile influence that presides near the President's 
ear." As yet the cause of emancipation in 
Maryland was under "no obligations" to 
Lincoln for its advance and, on the 22nd, a 



268 HENRY WINTER DAVIS 

convention of emancipationists, while express- 
ing confidence in him and ^'appreciation of his 
services, added this significant admonition" 
that they opposed the ''reorganization of State 
Governments" in seceded States, which did 
not "recognize the immediate and final aboli- 
tion of slavery as a condition precedent," and 
that they regretted that "influences in the cabi- 
net" had "depressed the efforts of the radical 
friends of the administration and of emanic- 
pation and given prominence to those who are 
the unwilling advocates of emancipation" in 
Maryland, Missouri, Arkansas, Tennessee and 
Louisiana. Davis justified this resolution, 
as showing that the Maryland advocates of 
freedom gave a devotion "not personal, but to 
principle," and would support Lincoln, only 
so long as he supported the cause of emanci- 
pation. 

In the rebel States also, slavery was not 
dead; but, if the Democrats should carry the 
coming election, "slavery is as alive as it was 
the day that the first gun blazed against Sum- 
ter." Davis set his face to the future and 
feared not "to say, to friend and foe, what the 
times demand." Slavery was not destroyed 
by Lincoln's proclamation, which only was 
"valid to the extent of turning" slaves "loose 
from their masters during the rebellion. If the 
old governments should be re-established and 



CHAPTER IX— 1 863- 1 865 269 

the ^'dominant aristocracy" allowed '^to re- 
possess the State power in its original pleni- 
tude," the institution would be restored. 
^'Nothing but the resolute declaration of the 
United States, that it shall be a condition prec- 
edent that slavery shall be prohibited in their 
Constitutions and that the United States shall 
give judicial guarantee to the negroes, freedom 
in fact, and that the United States shall be 
kept under the control of men of such political 
views and purposes that the law will be exe- 
cuted as a constitutional law and imposed on 
reluctant people — nothing else can accom- 
plish the death of slavery." 

Davis supported the bill as a temporary 
measure, but he felt that the nation's perma- 
nent policy should be determined toward the 
freeman. Lincoln had favored colonization 
and compensation, and Montgomery Blair, 
''supposed on that and other subjects, more ac- 
curately to represent his opinion than any 
other person," had commented on the Presi- 
dent's policy, in the form of an attack upon 
the "radical abolitionists." Davis acknowl- 
edged himself to be one of these and denied 
that they wished "to elevate to an equality" 
wdth the whites the negroes, or that it was 
true that "unequal races cannot live together 
on terms of equality and peace." He ap- 
pealed to history for the disproof of "that as- 



270 HENRY WINTER DAVIS 

tounding generalization" and adduced the Vol- 
kerwanderung as an instance. The Spaniards 
would have kept the Moors as fellow citizens, 
had the latter been willing to accept Christian- 
ity. The San Dominican negroes engaged in 
no slave revolt; but, having been freed by the 
French Assembly, refused to submit to re-en- 
slavement In Jamaica and in the French 
colonies, the f reedmen live peacefully with the 
whites. In Mexico and South America, the 
^'two races are not blended, neither is reduced 
to slavery;" but '^the Indian and Spaniard live 
together, because both are civilized and both 
are Christian and both are interested in the 
same laws and government and industry." In 
our own country, the Massachusetts colonists 
warred on the Indians, because the latter were 
a ''people of different religion," who ''refused 
every form of American civilization." The 
race riots in New York City in 1863, a solitary 
instance of such violence, were due to the 
Irish, not to Americans, and even these riots 
had "more of Democratic hostility to the Gov- 
ernment than Celtic hostility to the negro." 
If the negro be transplanted, whither shall he 
go? No place can be found for him. Fur- 
thermore, if compensation be given loyal own- 
ers for loss of slaves, "who will submit to ad- 
ditional millions of taxation?" Davis urged 
that "such a debt would equal the war debt; 



CHAPTER IX— 1 863- 1 865 271 

it would prostrate the resources of the country 
for generations ; it would inflict the scourge of 
perpetual debt on a land destroyed by civil 
war and made a desert by the deportation of 
its laboring population." Nay more, ^'the 
master will offer the negro more to stay, than 
the Government will offer him to go. Two 
generations can not fill up his place, and, if 
we can stand his presence two generations, per- 
haps Christian philosophy will enable our de- 
scendants to reconcile themselves to the per- 
manence of what has been found tolerable so 
long." The negroes themselves do not wish to 
leave America, but ^'prefer to stay where they 
are." 

Davis appealed to Congress to '^deal with 
the problem, under the conditions which 
exist." ^'The folly of our ancestors and the 
wisdom of the Almighty, in its inscrutable pur- 
poses, having allowed" the negroes to ''come 
here and planted them here, they have a right 
to remain here, and they will remain here to 
the last syllable of recorded time. And 
whether they become our equals or our su- 
periors, whether they blend, or remain a dis- 
tinct people, your posterity will know, for 
their eyes will behold them, as ours do now. 
These are things which we cannot control. 
Laws do not make, laws can not unmake them. 
If God has made them our equals, then they 



272 HENRY WINTER DAVIS 

will work out the problem which he has sent 
them to work out and, if God has stamped 
upon them an uneradicable inferiority, you 
cannot make one hair white or black, or add 
one cubit to their stature." He insisted that 
Congress do ^'not add to the inherent diffi- 
culties of the problem, prejudices, drawn from 
fancies, not facts." Next he defined his own 
position as ''a Marylander, not a 'Northern 
fanatic' My father was a slaveholder. I, 
myself, for years was a slaveholder. I have 
lived nearly all my life in Maryland. I know 
the temper of her people. I have lived for 
years in Virginia. I know the temper of her 
people; I know the relations of the white and 
black population in those States." Maryland 
had more free negroes than any other State 
and Virginia came next. In Maryland, ''one- 
eighth of our population is free negro." In 
1 8:^9, a Slaveholders' Convention was held in 
Maryland, whose conveners intended to put 
an "end to free negroism in Maryland;" but 
to that convention came James Alfred Pearce, 
an old Whig, whom Davis honored and to 
whom he referred as "always a statesman, al- 
ways a gentleman, however, wandering into 
errors in his last days." He made a report, 
in which he said that the result of any removal 
of the free negroes would be "far greater than 
all the evils the people of Maryland ever suf- 



CHAPTER IX— 1863-1865 273 

fered from them. In the City of Baltimore, 
it is estimated that there are more than 25,000 
of them, employed chiefly as domestic servants 
or laborers in various departments of industry. 
In many of the rural districts of the State, 
where labor is by no means abundant, they 
furnish a large supply of agricultural labor, 
and it is unquestionable that quite a large por- 
tion of our soil could not be tilled without their 
aid. In some districts, they supplement all 
the labor demanded by the farmers. Their 
removal from the State would deduct nearly 
50 per cent, from the household and agricul- 
tural labor furnished by people of this color, 
and indispensable to the people of the State, 
would produce great discomfort and incon- 
venience to the great body of householders; 
would break up the business and destroy the 
property of large numbers of landowners and 
landrenters; would be harsh and oppressive 
to those people themselves; would violate pub- 
lic sentiment, which is generally not only just 
but kindly, and would, probably, lead to other 
evils. We are satisfied that such a measure 
could not receive the legislative sanction and 
would not be tolerated by the great body of the 
people of Maryland, even with that sanction. 
The committee, therefore, cannot recommend 
their expulsion from the State. Still more 
unwilling should they be to favor any measure 

18 



274 HENRY WINTER DAVIS 

which looked to their being deprived of the 
right to freedom, which they have acquired by 
the indulgence of our laws and the tenderness 
of their masters, whether wise or unwise, or 
which they have inherited as a birthright." 
After that convention, an attempt was made to 
have the Legislature pass a bill, authorizing 
the hiring out of negroes to the highest bidder 
and, if they should then prove disobedient, to 
have them sold as slaves. As passed, it ex- 
tended to only a few counties,*^ and was not to 
become operative there until approved by 
popular vote. It was adopted in only one 
county, and there by accident.^^ Davis con- 
tended that the judgment of the people of 
Maryland concerning the free negro was that 
''we neither will expel ourselves, nor encour- 
age to go, nor allow other people to expel" 
them. 

The emancipation movement in Maryland 
was indebted to negro enlistments. At first 
only free negroes were enlisted, but after 
Judge Bond's remonstrance a levy was made 
''from the slave population, in order that the 
Union men might have the free colored popu- 
lation to hire," and "every slave enlisted was a 
poor white man's substitute." The recogni- 
tion of that fact, more than anything else, 
brought over "the people of the slaveholding 
counties of Maryland, who had voted at the 



CHAPTER IX— 1 863- 1 865 275 

beck of the slaveholders for generations," so 
that Greswell was elected over Crisfield, ''a 
most able gentleman." Davis deprecated ar- 
guments appealing to prejudice or to hostility, 
and urged that '^the great politico-economic 
argument should be permitted to prevail." 

Stern in his loyalty, Davis rose to heights 
which remind one of Cicero's orations against 
Catiline, in a speech delivered in the House 
on April 11, when a resolution was being con- 
sidered for the expulsion of Mr. Alexander 
Long, of Ohio.*^ He struck to the heart of the 
matter, and maintained that the question at 
issue was whether, as a legislator sworn to 
maintain the Constitution, Mr. Long had 
shown a '^determination not to defend, but to 
yield up undefended to the enemies of the 
United States what he was sent here to pro- 
tect." The precedents of the House showed 
that ^Vords may prove criminality" and may 
be "visited first by censure, and, if they judge 
it necessary to the public safety, by expulsion 
from the House." He criticised the House 
for recently voting that Benjamin G. Harris, 
from the Fifth Maryland district, was an '^un- 
worthy member" for language uttered in the 
House which designedly tended to "give aid 
and encouragement to the public enemies of 
the nation," and then not going further to his 
expulsion. Yet the censure voted on that oc- 



276 HENRY WINTER DAVIS 

casion showed the House's punishment of the 
utterance of words. Long had said that the 
only alternatives were: the ''extermination of 
the enemies of the United States," or the "rec- 
ognition of the Southern States as an inde- 
pendent government." In this view he agreed 
with the "rebel chiefs, and, like them, he 
avowed himself for recognition" of the South- 
ern Confederacy, which meant "the dissolu- 
tion of the United States." 

Having thus stated the case in "plain lan- 
guage," Davis charged Long as having vio- 
lated "a solemn oath and, therefore, not to be a 
fit depositary of his constituents' vote, a safe 
person to be intrusted here with the secrets of 
the United States, a worthy guardian of the 
existence of the republic." In i860 "the 
avowed enemies of the Republic" left the 
House. "One by one, as their stars dropped 
from the firmament of the Union, they went 
out, some with tears in their eyes over the 
miseries they were about to inflict; some of 
them with exultation over the coming calam- 
ity; some of them with contemptuous lectures 
to the members in the House; some stayed be- 
hind to do the traitor's business, in the dis- 
guise of honest legislators in both Houses, as 
long as they dared." Davis heaped scorn upon 
those too cowardly to avow the friendship 
they really felt for the secessionist cause and 



CHAPTER IX— 1 863- 1 865 277 

preferred an ^'open adversary." He did not 
wish to restrict free speech, but claimed that 
Long was arraigned, ''because he violates the 
law of the country by his purpose to destroy 
it." No privilege of the right to debate should 
prevent the punishment of such a violation. 
Next he called attention to the moderation of 
the House, and asked what would have been 
the fate of a man who in the Confederate Con- 
gress, the French National Assembly, or the 
English Parliament in 1745, should have made 
a like proposal to yield. If it were a consti- 
tutional right to speak thus, in spite of the law, 
the safety of the people would require Long's 
expulsion; but it is ''within the limits of the 
written law, which the wisdom of our fore- 
fathers gave us, so to act." The question is 
one "that nobody in this country has a right to 
be on more than one side of. On one side is 
patience, duty and an oath. On the other is 
treason, crime and perjury." Chatham's ex- 
ample must not be cited against Davis, for he 
entered his "dying protest against the recogni- 
tion of American independence." Opinion is 
"like the ocean, whose tides rise and fall, day 
by day, at the fickle bidding of the moon, yet 
it is the great scientific level from which every 
height is measured — the horizon to which as- 
tronomers refer the motion of the stars. But, 
like the ocean, it has depths, whose eternal 



278 HENRY WINTER DAVIS 

stillness is the condition of its stability. Those 
depths of opinion are not free, and it is they 
that are touched by the words which have so 
moved the House." Such words ''break up 
the fountains of the great deep, on which all 
government is borne," and ''pour its flood in 
revolutionary ruin over the land." To punish 
them is not "a violation of freedom of opinion, 
but is a protection of its normal ebb and flow." 
If other men have voiced similar expressions, 
that fact will not excuse Long, for "their guilt 
is not his innocence," and "if their guilt is be- 
yond my judgment," Long's guilt is not. 

He then attacked the Democratic party for 
having "more sympathy with the enemies of 
the country than with the country itself." 
Even the aid of the war Democrats was "more 
embarrassing than their opposition." If that 
party should gain control of the nation, then 
Davis said, in a long and eloquent sentence, it 
might be necessary to consider recognition of 
the Confederacy. 

"When the people, exhausted by taxation, 
weary of sacrifices, drained of blood, betrayed 
by their rulers, deluded by demagogues into 
believing that peace is the way to union and 
submission to victory, shall throw down their 
arms before the advancing foe," then Con- 
gress "may, without treason to the dead re- 
public, declare themselves for recognizing 



CHAPTER IX— 1863-1865 279 

their masters at the South, rather than exter- 
minating them. Until that day, in the name 
of the American nation, in the name of every 
house in the land where there is one dead for 
the holy cause ; in the name of those who stand 
before us in the ranks of battle; in the name of 
the liberty our ancestors have confided to us, 
I devote to eternal execration the name of him 
who shall propose to destroy this blessed land 
rather than its enemies." The people had 
risen to the ^'height of the occasion, dedicated 
this generation to the sword," and as a result 
the ^'banner of the Republic, still pointing on- 
ward, floats proudly in the face of the enemy," 
while 'Vast regions are reduced to obedience 
to the laws" and a ''great host, in armed array, 
now presses with steady step into the dark re- 
gions of the rebellion." Davis believed that 
the "earnest and abiding resolution of the peo- 
ple" will "save us." But if, "with such heroic 
resolve, we fall, we fall with honor and trans- 
mit the name of liberty, transmitted to our 
keeping, untarnished." This eloquent pero- 
ration was greeted with deserved applause, for 
its last sentences still stir one's blood. "If we 
must fall, let our last hours be stained with no 
weakness; if we must fall, let us stand amid 
the crash of the falling republic and be buried 
in its ruins, so that history may take note that 
men lived in the middle of the nineteenth cen- 



28o HENRY WINTER DAVIS 

tury worthy of a better fate, but chastised by 
God for the sins of their forefathers. Let the 
ruins of the Republic remain to testify to the 
latest generations our greatness and our hero- 
ism. And let Liberty, crownless and child- 
less, sit upon these ruins, crying aloud with a 
sad wail to the nations of the world: 'I nursed 
and brought up children and they have re- 
belled against me.' " 

Gideon Welles, Secretary of the Navy, had 
disliked Davis for some time and believed 
that Davis was disappointed because he had 
not received Welles's portfolio. ^^ Because of 
this dislike, Welles asked the Speaker, when 
the latter consulted him, not to place Davis 
on the Naval Committee. Welles admitted 
that Davis was ''one of the most talented and 
ingenious men in Congress," but he especially 
suspected Davis, because he had been the 
''friend and adviser" for some time of Ad- 
miral Dupont, between whom and Welles dif- 
ficulties had arisen. ^^ Dupont had asked to be 
transferred to Washington, and Davis sug- 
gested this transfer to Seward, who approved 
it, but Welles and Lincoln declined to make 
the transfer.*^ On February 25, when the 
Navy Appropriation bill was under discus- 
sion in the House, Davis made an attack upon 
the management of the department and asked 
an investigation of it, while he eulogized Du- 



CHAPTER IX— 1863-1865 281 

pont/^ Davis referred to the naval attack 
upon Charleston ^^as brilliant and as insane as 
Balaclava," and continued that ''it was not a 
naval expedition, undertaken on the judgment 
of naval officers or advised by the officer in 
command charged with its execution, but was 
devised in the department, without consulting 
him. If there is shame, it is because the de- 
partment thought a cotton-spinner was better 
than an admiral to plan it." The ablest offi- 
cer in the Navy thought that the attack must 
be a combined one in order to be successful. 
Admiral Dupont was brave.^° The Navy De- 
partment met him with slurs and insults. 
Sumter is now a heap of ruins, but Charleston 
does not fall. The "men in control of the 
Navy Department keep in retirement the most 
brilliant officer since Decatur, because the 
department's crude experiment failed and it 
was advisable that the department should not 
appear at fault." ^^ 

Interested in judicial matters,^^ Davis was 
willing to exclude cases of tort from the juris- 
diction of the Court of Claims, but was un- 
willing that a mere administrative officer, by 
administrative action, should conclude claims^^ 
against the Government, and held that that 
court's jurisdiction extended to all cases of 
contract. When the National Currency bill 
was being discussed, Davis ^* objected to driv- 



282 HENRY WINTER DAVIS 

ing the Bank of Commerce out of business, 
because of a provision in its articles of asso- 
ciation as to personal liability of stockhold- 
ers.^^ State banks, he maintained, must, on 
the other hand, be driven from existence, or 
there would be a '^plethora of currency" and 
a consequent '^desolating revulsion" like that 
of 1837.^^ He opposed taxation of national 
banks by the States, ''as placing the existence 
of these corporations at their mercy." It was 
a "question between the sovereign power of 
the United States and the necessities of the 
machinery it creates," on the one side, and the 
necessities of the States that desire to tax 
them," on the other.^^ 

From the Committee on Rules ^^ he reported 
an order, which was passed, that the names of 
members present, but not voting on any pro- 
posal, shall be recorded on the Journal imme- 
diately after the yeas and nays.^^ 

Davis felt that he was "charged simply with 
the interests of the United States, and, in 
subordination to the interests of the United 
States, the interests of my district." ^'^ Follow- 
ing the "paramount interest of the country," he 
voted to censure and to expel his fellow-repre- 
sentative from Maryland, B. G. Harris, for 
disloyalty.^^ 

When a Missouri election case was before 
the House,^^ Dawes intimated that the decision 



CHAPTER IX— 1863-1865 283 

of the case might have an effect upon the pros- 
pects of the Administration in the coming 
election. Davis then asked him whether that 
was a proper consideration. Dawes, without 
answering, charged Davis with ''midnight 
cabals" and responsibility for disorder at the 
Baltimore elections, and for dens, where voters 
were cooped up and ''from which Plug Uglys 
go forth." Davis waited for three days and 
then replied in a spirited address.^^ In this 
apologia pro vita sua, he began by stating that 
an election case is not a personal contest be- 
tween the sitting member and the claimant, 
but is a question relating to the rights of the 
people represented. "Is either of the parties 
claiming the seat entitled to speak here for 
the people of the district? That question can 
only be presented in two aspects. First, was 
there a valid election at all and anywhere in 
the district, and, secondly, if there was a valid 
election, which of the two parties had a ma- 
jority." To declare an election void at one 
poll "is not an avoidance of the election, unless 
the election was centered at one poll, where 
an overbearing force was present, with men- 
ace and violence such as would deter a man 
of ordinary firmness from approaching the 
polls and tendering his vote." Davis main- 
tained that the "prevalence of rumors, or 
threats, or intimidations before the day of elec- 



284 HENRY WINTER DAVIS 

tion, or elsewhere than at the polls, or in gain- 
ing access to them, is no consideration at all 
relevant to the validity of the election." In 
the Missouri case fifteen counties were includ- 
ed in the district, and there was no pretence of 
violence, except as to five of these, while there 
was no violence that could intimidate in one- 
tenth of the precincts in those counties. ^'Fear 
of use of force by legal means" is no reason 
for annulling an election; consequently, there 
should be no complaint of the presence of mi- 
litia at the polls. They are there for protec- 
tion. If a person is arrested by them, he may 
complain to the proper authorities. 

He turned next to the attack made on him 
by Dawes. Massachusetts and Maryland must 
have the same law. It was a ''most unkind 
and unexpected occurrence that a gentleman 
from Massachusetts should rise, after the great 
struggle for freedom in the loyal slave States 
of the Union, when triumph has perched on 
their banners, and reproach them with the 
dust and sweat of the conflict, rather than 
swell the chorus of exultation." ^^ Dawes op- 
posed the use of military elections; but when 
the troops were used in the ''massacre" at the 
Washington City election of 1857, the Repub- 
licans were silent, for they did not care "to 
soil themselves by defending Know Noth- 
ings." Yet "all who are against the common 



CHAPTER IX— 1863-1865 285 

enemy are for the Republic." The Demo- 
crats, when they oppose the use of troops at 
the polls, should remember the transactions in 
Kansas. Although Maryland elections had 
often been attacked, Davis had ''sat with con- 
temptuous silence in this House for six years, 
scorning to notice railing accusations" made 
elsew^here. ''No man ever dared, in my pres- 
ence," he continued, "to impeach my con- 
duct." Only after his third election did the 
opposition contest his seat. He had easily won 
that contest, and Dawes had then voted that 
Davis retain his seat. "No elections have 
anywhere occurred of more national import- 
ance or which reflected more honor upon the 
indomitable spirit and determination of the 
people to vindicate their rights at every haz- 
ard, than the elections in which I was a candi- 
date." As he had been attacked on the floor 
of the House, on that floor he now defended 
his conduct to the people of the United States. 
The American party was "organized to rescue 
the public school from Democratic and sec- 
tarian conspiracy, and first met and broke the 
power of the Democratic domination" of the 
country. The Republican party "encountered 
its fragments, when its sceptre was already 
wrested from its hands." Davis had risen to 
"vindicate" the memory of the American par- 
ty and "claim its true place in history." Pie 



286 HENRY WINTER DAVIS 

rehearsed the Maryland campaigns from 1855 
to 1859, i^ which latter year John Brown's 
raid caused such alarm that the Democrats 
carried the State. The persons whom Dawes 
sneered at as Plug Uglys were as '^respectable 
as the most respectable of his constituents. It 
is the heart of the American mechanics that 
he thus slights. Many of them now sleep in 
soldiers' graves. They constituted in great 
part the famous First Maryland Regiment, 
which, under the heroic Kenly, arrested with 
their bayonets for hours ten times their num- 
ber of rebel cavalry at Front Royal and never 
yielded till they were literally ridden down 
and destroyed, that they might give the Mas- 
sachusetts Banks time to save his army. They 
formed the great, silent, irresistible power 
which palsied the traitors who, on and after 
the 19th of April, vainly strove to tear Mary- 
land from the Union." He closed by vindi- 
cating the Administration and saying, "while 
we have the power, we will enforce the Con- 
stitution as we think right." ^^ 

Without consulting his Cabinet,^^ Lincoln 
issued a proclamation on July 9 upon the sub- 
ject of the Davis-Wade bill. He thought 
that measure ''too rigid and too restrictive," *^^ 
and that it were better to have "no fixed and 
formal method" of reconstruction and to be 
tied to "no single plan of restoration." He was 



CHAPTER IX— 1863-1865 287 

not willing to declare that the governments of 
Louisiana and Arkansas should be ''set aside 
and held for naught," and he hoped for a con- 
stitutional amendment that would abolish 
slavery. Yet he was satisfied that the system 
contained in the bill was "one very proper, for 
the loyal people of any State choosing to adopt 
it," and he was willing to appoint military 
Governors, "with directions to proceed ac- 
cording to the bill," in States where military 
resistance was suppressed and the people had 
sufficiently returned to obedience to the Con- 
stitution and the laws. 

The struggle between Congress and the 
President as to the right to reconstruct the 
Southern States thus began, and continued 
with increasing acrimony until finally a vic- 
tory in fact was won by Congress under the 
Presidency of Andrew Johnson. Long years 
afterwards the Supreme Court of the United 
States supported Davis's position as the legal 
one, saying that it is a "legislative duty to de- 
termine the politcal questions involved in de- 
ciding whether a State government in form ex- 
ists." ''' 

Chase was very angry at the issuance of Lin- 
coln's proclamation, and years later E. L. 
Pierce, writing Sumner's biography^ said that 
"no part of the President's entire official 
course was so open to exception as that which 



288 HENRY WINTER DAVIS 

he pursued on this subject of reconstruction, 
where he seemed to assert power for himself, 
to the exclusion of the people of the United 
States and of Congress." Lincoln's biogra- 
phers are correct, however, in writing ^^ that 
the ''great mass of voters accepted Lincoln's 
proclamation as the wisest and most practi- 
cable method." 

After Lincoln's proclamation had been is- 
sued, Davis sat down to prepare a public reply. 
Congress would not meet for several months, 
and he felt that an earlier answer should be 
made. When he had finished it, he read it to 
his friend and admirer, John T. Graham, who 
was to copy it out fair for publication. Gra- 
ham was so thrilled with it that he said : ''Mr. 
Davis, don't show what you have written to 
anyone else, but send it just as you have writ- 
ten it," fearing that if other Republican lead- 
ers in Maryland, such as Archibald Stirling, 
Esq., or Judge Hugh Lennox Bond, saw the 
document, they would soften and modify its 
expressions. Davis yielded to Mr. Graham's 
persuasion, and the document was sent to Sen- 
ator Benjamin F. Wade just as Davis had 
written^'' it. Davis's act has been viewed as 
an "intemperate arraignment," which really 
strengthened Lincoln's position,^^ although it 
was not surprising that "men of so much intel- 
ligence, courage and tenacity" as Davis and 



CHAPTER IX— 1 863- 1 865 289 

Wade would not permit so bold an act as Lin- 
coln's proclamation to be issued, while they 
were silent. 

Davis's best friends may well wish that he 
had left the manifesto unwritten. With the 
most exalted purpose, and with a fundamen- 
tally correct constitutional position, he pre- 
pared a document, whose fierce attack on the 
President could do no good, and which (save 
for the fact that it was boldly published) re- 
minds one in many particulars of Hamilton's 
equally unwise attack on Adams in the cam- 
paign of 1800. The argument of the mani- 
festo, addressed to ^^the supporters of the Gov- 
ernment" is that of Davis's congressional 
speeches upon the bill for the reorganization 
of the seceded States and is cogent. The os- 
tensible reason for the document was that 
Davis and Wade, having read ^'without sur- 
prise, but not without indignation, the procla- 
mation of the President," felt that they ought 
not to pass it in silence, but ought to endeavor 
"to check the encroachments of the executive 
on the authority of Congress and to require 
it to confine itself to its proper sphere." With 
words of extreme condemnation, they declare 
that, so far as Lincoln's proclamation ''con- 
tains an apology for not signing the bill, it is 
a political manifesto against the friends of the 
Government. So far as it proposes to execute 

19 



290 HENRY WINTER DAVIS 

the bill, which is not a law, it is a grave execu- 
tive usurpation." Lincoln had called atten- 
tion in the proclamation to the fact that the 
bill was presented to him, just before the ad- 
journment of Congress, and Davis properly 
exposed this subterfuge by showing that the 
bill had been so fully discussed for so long a 
time that 'ignorance of its contents is out of 
the question." The provisions of the bill did 
not ''take the President by surprise." The 
evidence rather tended to show that Lincoln 
had determined not to sign the bill, long be- 
fore it passed the Senate. Davis also empha- 
sized the danger of permitting the President's 
''wisdom and prudence" to be "our sufficient 
guarantees," in so important a matter as the 
treatment of the rebel States. Lincoln had 
upheld, in his proclamation, "those shadows 
of governments in Arkansas and Louisiana 
which Congress formally declared should not 
be recognized, by repelling the representatives 
and Senators from these States and by refusing 
them an electoral vote." Davis condemned 
these "mere oligarchies, imposed upon the 
people by military orders under the forms of 
election," and maintained that Lincoln, "by 
preventing this bill from becoming a law,, 
holds the electoral votes of the rebel States at 
the dictation of his personal ambition." Not 
only so, but the Supreme Court, in the Rhode 



CHAPTER IX— 1863-1865 291 

Island case, had established the correctness of 
the doctrine that the ^^judgment of Congress, 
which the President defied, was the exercise of 
an authority exclusively invested in Congress 
by the Constitution." Under the Constitu- 
tion, the right to Senators and Representatives 
is ^inseparable from a State government. If 
there be a State government, the right is abso- 
lute. The two Houses of Congress are ex- 
pressly declared to be the sole judges of their 
own members. When, therefore. Senators 
and Representatives are admitted, the State 
government, under whose authority they were 
chosen, is conclusively established; when they 
are rejected, its existence is as conclusively re- 
jected and denied. And to this judgment, the 
President is bound to submit." 

Lincoln had said that he was unwilling to 
^'declare a constitutional competency in Con- 
gress to abolish slavery in States," but the bill 
only referred to rebel States, where Lincoln 
had already emancipated ''much the larger 
number of slaves." Davis insisted that the 
President can not have ''more discretion in this 
matter than Congress had. Indeed, except as 
to a small part of Louisiana and Virginia, the 
bill "added a congressional title and judicial 
remedies by law to the disputed title under the 
proclamation and perfected the work" of 
Lincoln. Slavery in the States can be abol- 



292 HENRY WINTER DAVIS 

ished only by their constitutions and the bill 
provided that the new State constitutions must 
contain a provision for manumission. 

Davis's wrath knew no bounds at Lincoln's 
proposal to execute the bill as a law, by his 
^'plenary dictatorial power," than which state- 
ment, he cried out, ''a more studied outrage on 
the legislative authority of the people has 
never been perpetrated." He particularly ob- 
jected to the appointment of provisional mili- 
tary governors, instead of civil ones, as the bill 
provided, and to the procedure, by ''persons re- 
sponsible to no law and more intrusted to se- 
cure the interests and execute the will of the 
President than of the people." He objected 
to the rebel States being allowed to take the 
easy way of following the requirements of the 
President's proclamation of December 8, 
which failed to give the needed ''guarantees 
of future peace" or to "protect the loyal men 
of the nation against three great dangers: i. 
The return to power of the guilty leaders of 
the rebellion. 2. The continuance of slavery, 
and 3, the burden of the rebel debt." The 
failure to sign the bill was a "rash and fatal 
act," a "blow at the friends" of Lincoln's "ad- 
ministration, at the rights of humanity, and at 
the principles of Republican Government." 
He had presumedonmen's forbearance. Davis 
and Wade supported a cause, not a man, and 



CHAPTER IX— 1 863- 1 865 293 

insisted that the "authority of Congress is par- 
amount," and to that authority Lincoln must 
"leave political reorganization." The mani- 
festo ends with the ringing call to the "sup- 
porters of the Government" to "consider the 
remedy for these usurpations, and, having 
found, fearlessly execute it." The manifesto 
caused Davis to be defeated by Gen. Charles 
E. Phelps in October for the Congressional 
nomination, but was characteristic of a man, 
who "always boldly avowed his opinions and 
assumed their full responsibility."^^ 

When the manifesto appeared on August 8, 
Welles asked Lincoln what he thought of it, 
and was told that he had not read it and prob- 
ably should not read it. "From what was 
said of it, he had no desire to" do so, and 
"could himself take no part in such a contro- 
versy as they seemed to wish to provoke." 
Welles added, "perhaps he is right, provided 
he has some judicious friend to state to him 
what there is really substantial in the protest 
entitled to consideration, without the vitupera- 
tive asperity." Lincoln was content to let his 
opponents "wriggle," ^^ but thought it strange 
that Greeley would publish the manifesto in 
the Tribune, a paper which had favored the 
administration. The publication of the mani- 
festo caused Welles to indite a more atrabili- 
ous passage than usual in his diary: "The pro- 



294 HENRY WINTER DAVIS 

test is violent and abusive of the President, 
who is denounced with malignity, for what I 
deem the wise and prudent omission to sign a 
law. There are many offensive features in 
the law, which is in itself an usurpation and 
abuse of authority. How, or in what way or 
ways, the several States are to put themselves 
right, and retrieve their position is in the fu- 
ture and cannot well be specified. There must 
be latitude and not a stiff and a too stringent 
policy pursued in this respect by either the 
Executive or Congress." Looking for low 
motives, Welles found that "in getting up this 
law it was as much an object of Mr. Winter 
Davis and some others to pull down the ad- 
ministration as to reconstruct the Union. I 
think they had the former more directly in 
view than the latter. Davis's conduct is not 
surprising," but Wade should not have lent 
himself to "such a despicable assault." Davis 
seemed to Welles to be the ringleader who had 
drawn in Colfax and they had flattered Wade 
to do a foolish act. Venting the vials of his 
wrath on Davis, Welles wrote of him as a man 
who "had a good deal of talent, but is rash 
and uncertain. There is scarcely a more am- 
bitious man and one that can not be more safe- 
ly trusted. He is impulsive and mad and has 
been acute and contriving in this whole meas- 
ure." He is "not controlled by earnest zeal," 
but is "ambitious and malignant." 



CHAPTER IX— 1 863- 1 865 295 

Nicolay and Hay^^ are hardly less severe. 
From the '^grim beginning" of the manifesto 
until the end, it was the ''most vigorous attack 
that was ever directed against the President by 
one of his own party during his term." It 
''insinuated that only the lowest personal mo- 
tives could have dictated" Lincoln's action, 
while it also "ridiculed Lincoln's earnestly 
expressed hope for constitutional amendment." 
Every sentence of Lincoln's proclamation 
"came in for its share of censure or ridicule." 

A less partisan critic ^^ wrote that, notwith- 
standing the necessity for harmony among 
those desiring to put down the rebellion, after 
the issuance of Lincoln's proclamation, "two 
of the boldest leaders, disregarding every con- 
sideration of prudence, arraigned the Presi- 
dent, in language which, for severity, was 
never surpassed by the invectives of his ablest 
political opponents. In the entire experience 
of the Republic, no executive had ever as- 
sumed to reject those provisions in a legisla- 
tive measure which he disliked and adopt those 
that were acceptable. This is precisely what 
Mr. Lincoln did and the reasons for his action 
he declared to the people with a confidence" 
like Jackson's.^^ Davis's ardent admirer, 
Blaine, writing twenty years later, said that, 
while the Congress almost unanimously dis- 
sented from Lincoln's "extraordinary" course 



296 HENRY WINTER DAVIS 

in issuing his proclamation, they had gone 
home and found the people united in his sup- 
port. ^'Two of the ablest, most fearless, most 
resolute men then in public life" were excep- 
tions and they sent forth the manifesto, ^'able, 
caustic and unqualified." ^^The protest closed 
with the language of stern admonition, if not 
indeed of absolute menace," but it was "a 
brutum fulmen with no visible political re- 
sult," save the defeat of Davis, when a candi- 
date for renomination to Congress. ^'The 
very strength" of the paper was its ^'special 
weakness. It was so powerful an arraignment 
of the President that, of necessity, it rallied 
his friends to his support with that intense 
form of energywhich springs from the instinct 
of self-preservation." Blaine is probably cor- 
rect in adding that, even if the President were 
in error, it were better to follow him than to 
have dissension and division, and that men pre- 
ferred to follow Lincoln, who had all the 
power, rather than Davis and Wade, who had 
none.^^ In spite of the "solicitations of most of 
his personal friends in Maryland," Lincoln 
refused to "discriminate against the faction 
headed by Mr. Davis in making appointments 
to office in that State" and when, during this 
important campaign, a deputation of promi- 
nent supporters of the administration in Mary- 
land came to Washington to denounce Mr. 



CHAPTER IX— 1 863- 1 865 297 

Davis for his outspoken hostility to the Presi- 
dent, saying such a course, if it continued, 
would lose Mr. Lincoln the electoral vote of 
the State, he replied: ''I understand that Mr. 
Davis is doing all in his power to secure the 
success of the emancipation ticket in Mary- 
land. If he does this, I care nothing about 
the electoral vote."^° 

Lincoln's words might have been even 
stronger. When Creswell pronounced his 
eulogy on Davis, he said ''his crowning glory 
was the leadership of the emancipation move- 
ment" in Maryland.'' The Confederates had 
talked of delivering the State from the ''ty- 
rant's heel" which was upon its neck, but 
Davis set about the task of breaking the last 
tie which bound Maryland to the other slave 
States by destroying slavery and thus placed 
the State "unalterably on the side of the Union 
and freedom." Gathering Creswell, Cushing 
and a few others, he organized his "little band, 
almost ridiculous from its want of numbers, 
early in 1863." Enemies laughed them to 
scorn, but Davis led them to success through 
a contest, in whose "heat and fury," the hearts 
of his associates were "welded into permanent 
friendship" with him. He announced their 
platform in a few comprehensive words, de- 
claring that they stood for "a hearty support 
of the entire policy of the national adminis- 



298 HENRY WINTER DAVIS 

tration, including immediate emancipation by 
constitutional means." He opened the cam- 
paign, by publishing an address of some twen- 
ty pages to the people of the State, which 
pamphlet Creswell characterized as notable 
''for the warmth and vigor of its diction and 
the lucidity and conclusiveness of its argumen- 
tation." He closed his message with this 
hopeful sentence: ''We do not doubt the result 
and expect, freed from the trammels which 
now bind her, to see Maryland, at no distant 
day, rapidly advancing in a course of unex- 
ampled prosperity with her sister free States 
of the undivided and indivisible republic." 

In the campaign, Creswell continued: "Mr. 
Davis was ubiquitous. He arranged the or- 
der of battle, dictated the correspondence, 
wrote the important articles for the newspa- 
pers, and addressed all the concerted meetings. 
In short, neither his voice nor his pen rested 
in all the time of our travail. He would have 
no compromise, but rejected all overtures ot 
the enemy short of unconditional surrender. 
On the Eastern Shore, he spoke with irresisti- 
ble power at Elkton, Easton, Salisbury and 
Snow Hill, at each of the three last named 
towns with a crowd of wondering "American 
citizens of African descent" listening to him 
from afar, and looking upon him as if they 
believed him to be the seraph Abdiel. His 



CHAPTER IX— 1 863- 1 865 299 

last appointment, In extreme Southern Mary- 
land, he filled on Friday, after which, bidding 
me a cordial God-speed, he descended from 
the stand, sprang into an open wagon awaiting 
him, travelled 80 miles through a raw night 
air, reached Cambridge by daylight and then 
:rossed the Chesapeake 60 miles, in time to 
close the campaign with one of his ringing 
speeches in Monument Square, Baltimore, on 
Saturday night." 

Victorious in the election of 1863, he then 
''allowed himself no reprieve from labor," un- 
til the Legislature had called a constitutional 
convention, and had voted to adopt the Con- 
stitution abolishing slavery, which that con- 
vention, had framed. Then he went before 
the Court of Appeals successfully to maintain 
the validity of the adoption of the Constitu- 
tion and ''drew extraordinary encomiums, even 
from his opponents in that angry litigation. "^^ 

It is, therefore, easily to be seen that during 
1864, Davis took a very prominent part in 
events in Maryland. In pursuance of a call 
by the Unconditional Union State Central 
Committee, he addressed a meeting in the 
Maryland Institute in Baltimore on April i.^ 
He began, by asserting that the election of the 
previous autumn had shown that the people of 
the State wished that Maryland "be put upon 
the same basis of free institutions, which have 



300 HENRY WINTER DAVIS 

wrought such miracles of prosperity among 
our Northern sisters." The Governor and 
the Legislature had been unfriendly, but the 
Assembly ^'did not dare adjourn without pass- 
ing" the bill to submit to the people the ques- 
tion of calling a Constitutional convention. 
Two sets of delegates were nominated for elec- 
tion to that Convention, and Davis strongly 
urged the election of those men who were 
pledged to vote for emancipation. ''The slav- 
ery interest" was struggling "vigorously to 
maintain its domination." It had been hither- 
to master of the whole State, through the "rot- 
ten borough counties of Southern Maryland 
and the Eastern Shore," who "have used their 
power to take to themselves the lion's share of 
our political honor and to cast upon you the 
ass's share of every political burden." Taxa- 
tion had been unevenly imposed. One-fourth 
of the white population had held one-half of 
the political power. The first fruit of the 
"breaking down" of slavery should be to re- 
distribute political power and to "reassert the 
right of numbers" in Maryland. The slavery 
men were trying to discourage men from vot- 
ing for a convention, on the ground that it 
might vote to compensate slaveholders for 
freedom. Davis ridiculed this fear. The 
slaveholding counties elected only half the 
convention. Any "ordinance they may pass 



CHAPTER IX— 1863-1865 301 

as part of the Constitution has to be submitted 
to the vote of the people for their sanction 
and the vote of the City of Baltimore alone 
will defeat any bill for compensation." Cres- 
well's victory, in ''the Africa of the Eastern 
Shore," proved that some, even of the slave- 
holding counties, would vote for emancipa- 
tion. Davis's experience in the Eastern Shore 
campaign, had taught him that the poorer 
classes, who, ''for three generations, had been 
voting at the dictation of the leading gentle- 
men of their regions," had now "cast their 
first independent vote, for their own freedom 
first and the freedom of the negro afterward." 
Crisfield, "the ablest man of the Eastern 
Shore, a gentleman of large property, a large 
negro-holder, with a national reputation, 
leaning to the Copperhead style of politics, 
intensely conservative," was beaten by Cres- 
well, who argued that the time for emanci- 
pation was come. Not only so, but the 
Maryland Legislature had excluded secession- 
ists from voting at the next election, holding 
"that men who are traitors to the country have 
no part in our political community." The 
opponents alleged that the advocates of the 
Convention favored giving to the negro 
"equality" and, for that allegation, Davis un- 
mercifully ridiculed them and denied the 
charge. The slave-holders deserved no com- 



302 HENRY WINTER DAVIS 

pensation, because they had failed to pay fair 
taxes on slave property. For forty years, they 
had been ^'plunderers of the public purse for 
their private benefit." They had also spurned 
the ''only chance they ever had of receiving 
anything as a ransom for their slaves," by re- 
jecting all overtures from the Federal Govern- 
ment in the early months of the war. "Be- 
tween them and compensation, the great gulf 
is fixed." The President's proposal of com- 
pensation was "intended to promote the sup- 
pression of the rebellion," to "save a thousand 
millions of dollars" and a "year of anarchy 
and bloodshed. The year had gone. The 
thousand millions of dollars are sunk in the 
ruts of our artillery in the South. The blood 
is shed. The blood that pays the ransom of 
the negro is poured out and the money of the 
Government went with it," so that those who 
refused the ofifer, may now "eat the bitter 
fruits of their folly." 

The slaveholders had no longer a claim upon 
the Federal Government for compensation, 
since the "United States never granted them 
slave property." If the State enfranchise the 
slaves, the loss to the owners is analogous to 
that occasioned by a change in the tarifif, which 
Davis had seen destroy "values infinitely 
greater than the value of the slave property of 
Maryland," without any one proposing to 



CHAPTER IX— 1 863- 1 865 303 

^^compensate the broken manufacturers of 
Massachusetts and the iron dealers of Pennsyl- 
vania or Maryland." 

^'Negroes are no more property by the law 
of nature than white men." The slaveholders 
had their compensation, by '^robbing the State 
Treasury of the taxes" upon the slaves' "real 
value;" by the "improved value of their 
lands," especially in "Southern Maryland, 
where everything that smiles and blossoms is 
the work of the negro that they tore from 
Africa;" and by "four generations of uncom- 
pensated labor." No political party would 
dare to go into a canvass and advocate doub- 
ling the war debt by compensating owners for 
their slaves. "There is scarcely a household 
where there is not one dead," continued Davis 
eloquently, "there is scarcely a household 
where children are not lacking for some of 
the comforts of life, by reason of this great 
war, and their wants must not be increased to 
give luxuries to the rich slaveholders. The 
negro is paid for by the hardships that men 
are now enduring. He is paid for by the in- 
creased price of labor, the increased price of 
land and bread, the withdrawal of labor from 
the free States, the converting of an immense 
population into an army. This is the pay for 
it. It is paid for by the iniquity of the re- 
bellion and they will get no other pay but the 
suppression of the rebellion." He closed, by 



304 HENRY WINTER DAVIS 

urging all Baltimoreans to vote for a Conven- 
tion, "which not merely rids her commercial 
wealth of the burden of being in a slave State, 
but restores to her political equality with all 
the free regions of the State." On October 
12, 1864, the new State Constitution abolish- 
ing slavery was adopted. 

During the first six months of 1864, the 
breach between Lincoln and Davis had so 
widened that, on May 13, Governor E. D. 
Morgan, of New York, told Secretary Welles 
that the hall in which it was expected that the 
National Republican Convention would meet 
had been hired by the malcontents through 
the treachery and connivance of Davis.^^ 

Overtures were made Davis of support 
for the vice-presidential nomination, if he 
would support Lincoln, but he indignantly re- 
plied: "What! Desert a cause for my personal 
preferment." ^^ 

The National Union Convention met at 
Baltimore on June 8 and unanimously renom- 
inated Lincoln for the Presidency. Davis, who 
would have preferred Chase or Wade, was 
seriously disturbed by the nomination. The 
proclamation of the President and the raid of 
Early into Maryland in July increased his dis- 
turbance. He feared that, with Lincoln as its 
standard-bearer, the Union party might even 
lose the election, and so participated in a con- 



CHAPTER IX— 1 863- 1 865 305 

ference held in New York City at the end of 
July, in the hope of securing Lincoln's with- 
drawal.'' 

Later in August, Davis wrote Charles Sum- 
ner, taking a cheerless view of the prospect 
and seeing small chance of success against 
Executive influence.^^ He advocated a new 
candidate for the Presidency, and vouched 
Wade as a supporter of such a man.^^ 

Davis was not one, however, to sulk'^ in his 
tent, and, though he was not renominated for 
Congress nor invited to take part in the can- 
vass in Maryland, he spoke under the auspices 
of the Union League in Philadelphia on Octo- 
ber 25.^° His friends knew that he would 
neither yield to their persuasions, nor to the 
^^threats and imprecations of enemies." He 
bent to no considerations of "policy," but was 
unbending in his attitude towards all ques- 
tions. He could subordinate personal con- 
siderations to those of public interest. No act 
of his life is nobler or more statesmanlike than 
the delivery of the eloquent Philadelphia ora- 
tion. Bitterly and rightfully opposing the 
policy of the President, disappointed in his 
hopes of a renomination for Congress, but yet 
convinced that the success of the efifort to put 
down the rebellion demanded Lincoln's re- 
election, with fine magnanimity he sprang to 
his support. Davis began his address with a 
20 



3o6 HENRY WINTER DAVIS 

statement of his beliefs, that ''the canvass in 
which the American people are now engaged 
is very much the most momentous that the his- 
tory of the world, or of free government, has 
produced. If it succeed, as in my judgment 
it will succeed, in placing in power the men 
who have conducted the Government through 
this awful crisis, till safety begins to be visible, 
a result will have been accomplished which 
will forever place the capacity of the people 
of America for self-government beyond cavil 
— beyond the reach of question — for they are 
called to vote for the election of a man who 
has presided over the Government in circum- 
stances altogether unprecedented, during a 
time when vast sacrifices have been exacted 
and vast sacrifices have cheerfully been made 
by the mass of the American people; when 
enormous taxes have been imposed; when 
enormous armies have been raised; when great 
results were expected and great results have 
not always been achieved; when disaster has 
perched upon the national banner as often as 
victory; and when the great preponderance of 
our resources in men and money, while grad- 
ually and steadily eating toward the heart of 
the rebellion, have not reached it with that 
promptness, have not crushed it with that de- 
cisiveness that our hopes led us to expect when 
the war broke out. Under these circumstances. 



CHAPTER IX— 1 863- 1 865 307 

judged by the history of the world, discontent, 
dissension, the lack of spirit and of energy, di- 
visions at home, dictating tones from abroad, 
popular submission, popular bewilderment, 
were what we were entitled to expect — nay, 
what we were bound to expect. Instead of 
that, what do we behold? The great mass of 
the American people having, as it were, been 
surprised into the renomination of the present 
candidate — then for a moment pausing, as if 
frightened at what they had done — then lis- 
tening to the first echo from Chicago, and for- 
getting every doubt, throwing aside every 
hesitation, subjecting every criticism to the 
dictates of the highest reason and the highest 
statesmanship, as one man, turned to the can- 
didate whom before they had doubted, with 
a resolution that they must make an election — 
not between two individuals, not between the 
personal qualities of Abraham Lincoln and 
George B. McClellan, not between the public 
services of the one or the other, but an election 
between the overthrow and the salvation of the 
Republic." There is no wonder that the au- 
dience here interrupted the speech with loud 
applause. He subordinated his personal dis- 
likes and differences of opinion to the great 
question, 'Vhat do we wish to accomplish?" 
and, without hesitation, said that ^T, and thou- 
sands like me in America," will vote for Abra- 



3o8 HENRY WINTER DAVIS 

ham Lincoln, because, "if we desire a change, 
we cannot change now without bringing ruin 
upon the Republic; and, for that reason, every 
doubt is subordinated to the great necessities 
of empire." "Great sacrifices," he continued, 
"heretofore made, are to be thrown away, if 
you come to one judgment, and to be fruitful 
in blessings, if you come to another judg- 
ment." The decision must be made solemnly, 
with full consciousness that it means continu- 
ance of the war, that "it dooms fifty thousand 
men to death, and that they have to come from 
your brothers and your sons;" that it deter- 
mines "whether the fabric of government 
reared by our fathers shall remain untouched, 
whether the integrity of republican institu- 
tions shall be preserved." He had "never for 
a moment hesitated" in his belief "that the 
mass of the American people, taxation, blood- 
shed, failure to the contrary notwithstanding, 
are for the war as the only path of safety. Not 
because they want bloodshed, but because they 
want peace; not because they want to subju- 
gate their fellow-citizens, but because they are 
determined all shall be free." Consequently, 
when the Democratic platform expressed a 
"doubt as to whether the war was to proceed," 
the people's judgment was settled as to the 
candidate. It is not desired to restore the 



CHAPTER IX— 1 863- 1 865 309 

Union ''as heretofore," when Buchanan was 
President, and the nation was humiliated. 

The Democratic success would mean to the 
Union ''its submission to Southern dictation, 
its destruction before Southern rebellion, dis- 
solution and death, and not preservation." 
The Democrats advocate a cessation of hostili- 
ties, opening the door for foreign intervention. 
If the Confederates refuse to makepeace, "how 
will you ever take up the musket, after it has 
been laid down?" It was clear that "the ces- 
sation of the war means the end of the war — 
that the end of the war means the end of co- 
ercive measures for the restoration of the Re- 
public." McClellan's backers were Peace 
Democrats, and would "repeal every law on 
the statute book for carrying on of the war," 
disband the negro regiments, and "remove the 
suspension of the habeas corpus, in order that 
Democratic traitors might walk at large and 
communicate with the enemy." The Republi- 
cans have "struggled, to the best of their abil- 
ity, be it poor or great, for four years to carry 
on" the war, and "if they are not stripped of 
power now, will, in a reasonable time, put an 
end to it." There is no other way of "restoring 
the integrity of the Republic than bythebloody 
paths of war." Davis had taken that position 
in the fall of i860, and never swerved from it. 
He saw clearly, from the time of the secession 



3IO HENRY WINTER DAVIS 

of South Carolina, that ^^the only path to unity 
in this country is over bloody battle fields." 

The people must not be deluded. '^You may 
be near the end of the rebellion, but there is 
many a sharp struggle before you yet, and the 
only way to end it is to let the rebels have no 
rest, to press them on, day by day, and night 
by night, filling up the gulf between you and 
them with your dead sons and brothers, if 
necessary, but remembering that every week 
of armistice, every day of delay, every month 
of winter quarters means other hetacombs to 
fill up the gap in your march." The Demo- 
crats raised objections to Lincoln's conduct of 
his administration, but Davis boldly cried 
that ''the Republican party stands at his back 
and takes the responsibility of what has passed 
before." Mistakes had been made, ''yet the 
substantial things of government had been 
done better than our antagonists could do 
them." Striking at the central point of the 
campaign, Davis averred that "the question is 
not whether Mr. Lincoln has done the best 
that any mind could conceive, nor even the 
best that he himself could do, nor whether 
what he has done, is absolutely right, or abso- 
lutely in accordance with law; but the ques- 
tion is whether his opponent would do better." 
This question Davis unhesitatingly answered 
negatively, saying that the "greatest of all fail- 



CHAPTER IX— 1 863- 1 865 311 

ures" during the war was the ''failure of 
George B. McClellan," and that to that fail- 
ure, more than to any other cause, the duration 
of the war was due. 

The Democrats objected to the violation of 
the rights of personal liberty, but Davis re- 
plied that liberty stands in the same category 
with life. ''How many men has Abraham 
Lincoln shot down, according to the law, be- 
cause they stood in grey clothes before men in 
blue clothes?" Why are the captured Con- 
federates confined? "May men furnish the 
enemy with munitions of war, or clothes, or 
information, or give them aid and comfort, or 
send them medicines, and yet not be within the 
range of indictment for treason, or at the op- 
tion of the country, the military security of a 
discretionary arrest?" It is true that Lincoln 
suspended the writ of habeas corpus illegally, 
as Davis warned him, in the first year of the 
war; but in 1863 Congress suspended it legally. 

What is McClellan's record? In September, 
1 861, he was "the first man that took a step in 
the direction of arresting without judicial pro- 
cess," when he ordered General Banks to seize 
members of the Maryland Legislature who 
had Southern sympathies. Davis believed 
that, on the whole, "more men have been im- 
properly discharged than have been improp- 
erly arrested," but he was certain that, with 



312 HENRY WINTER DAVIS 

McClellan's record, he is not the man to im- 
peach the conduct of the President as to ar- 
rests." McClellan's action was taken when 
'^there was no armed foe in Maryland." 

The Democrats also alleged that '^military 
power has been brought to bear illegally upon 
elections, and Reverdy Johnson had recently 
made such imputation." Here again Davis 
was able to point out the inconsistency of the 
Democratic position, by calling attention to 
McClellan's order of October 29, 1861, to 
General Banks in Maryland, not only ''to pro- 
tect Union voters and to see that no disunion- 
ists are allowed to intimidate them," but also 
''to arrest and hold in confinement till after 
the election all disunionists who are known to 
have returned from Virginia recently and who 
show themselves at the polls." He further 
authorized Banks to suspend the habeas cor- 
pus act, in carrying out these instructions, and 
gave the "first example in the United States 
during this war of an attempt to prevent 
rebels from voting." McClellan used the 
wider term of disunionists, yet Johnson, with- 
out complaining of the order, was a successful 
candidate for the House of Delegates at that 
election and was elected to a seat in the United 
States Senate ^^ by the Legislature then chosen. 

Since the Democrats claimed that, if success- 
ful, they would carry on the war on Christian 



CHAPTER IX— 1 863- 1 865 313 

principles, Davis showed, by the warfare of 
England, France, Russia and other European 
nations, that ^'there never has been a war con- 
ducted upon principles that could be called so 
nearly Christian, excepting that the only 
Christian principle I can apply to the conduct 
of war is that it shall be short, and sharp, and 
merciful. And the danger of this war has 
been that the President could not rise to the 
height of the emergency and steel his heart 
against what was pity in the individual, but 
cruelty in the ruler." Davis held that war 
meant the ''greatest destruction in the shortest 
time. That is mercy and that is wisdom." 

The Democratic party, he believed to be 
disloyal at heart, and he considered it no idle 
threat that they had adjourned their conven- 
tion to meet at the call of the National Com- 
mittee. He feared that if the election of 
President should depend on the vote of the 
Border Union States, the Democrats would 
allege that the election was illegal and would 
try to overthrow the Government. He was 
confident, however, that a majority of the Free 
States would vote for Lincoln, and advocated 
prompt action. 

The Democrats asserted that ''the policy of 
the President has divided the North and 
united the South," but Davis replied that the 
North had never been united, for there "never 



314 HENRY WINTER DAVIS 

was a day that the great mass of the Demo- 
cratic party and its chief leaders were not op- 
posed to the war." As to uniting the South, 
that was done by the firing on Sumter and the 
battle of Bull Run, as McClellan's own testi- 
mony in 1861 proved. From that time ''the 
South united themselves to gain their inde- 
pendence." Again turning to McClellan's 
record, Davis showed that in July, 1862, he 
had favored the "right of the Government to 
appropriate claims to slave labor permanently 
to its own service," and was willing even to 
extend this confiscation to "all the slaves of a 
particular State, thus working manumission 
in such State," whether it be loyal or not. He 
was thus several months ahead of the emanci- 
pation proclamation, in which proclamation 
Davis believed the President overstepped "his 
legal authority." 

In 1862 the country had been divided, with 
the majority against the Administration. 
Now the "majority is on our side," the "radi- 
cal maniacs" have turned out to be "wise 
statesmen. Energy, for the thousandth time, 
has been shown to be stronger than hesitating 
weakness. When a thing is to be done, the 
shortest way is the best way to do it, and brings 
strength and energy with it. The country to- 
day stands committed to this: the end of the 
war, the integrity of the Government, and the 



CHAPTER IX— 1 863- 1 865 315 

extinction of the cause of the war — slavery." 
Our strength has grown in proportion as the 
''Black abolitionists" have ''got near the Presi- 
dent's ear and the men of the Blair school have 
got far from it." He traced the progress of 
events, freeing of slaves who aided the rebel- 
lion; prohibition of return of fugitives; eman- 
cipation in the District ; enlistment of negroes ; 
proclamationof freedom, whichwillnot be law 
until Congress shall act, but which was "an 
utterance, though illegal, in the right direc- 
tion;" the admission of West Virginia on con- 
dition that she should abolish slavery; emanci- 
pation in Misouri; the enlisting of negroes as 
substitutes for whites in Maryland; the law 
which declared that bond and free owed mili- 
tary service on the same conditions; and, fin- 
ally, emancipation in Maryland. Davis had 
felt bitterly the lack of support from Wash- 
ington in the struggle for victory in Mary- 
land, and said that only Stanton and liberal 
gentlemen in Philadelphia and Boston had 
given encouragement and aid to the making 
the State free, by the "untouched and untram- 
meled vote of her own citizens." The Repub- 
lican party then stood "more united, stronger, 
agreeing better in opinion, more resolutely de- 
termined to meet the public enemies, more 
united about the instruments that we shall use 
to smite them down, than at any other period." 



3i6 HENRY WINTER DAVIS 

Davis hoped that the men who advised Lin- 
coln to give a pocket veto to the bill to secure 
freedom to the slaves, would not repeat their 
advice, for it would be clear that '^the mass of 
the American people are resolved that no slave 
shall breathe the American air." In this pe- 
roration he insisted, with eloquence, that the 
people needed ''resolutely to determine that, 
having gone through the greater part of the 
suffering which they will be called upon to 
endure during the war, they will only endure 
a little longer, they will only not fail in the 
very hour and crisis of victory; for he that 
holds out the longest is sure of the victory. 
The only criterion of a great nationality is the 
capacity of endurance." If we endure as the 
Romans did, we shall surpass their state in 
greatness. 

The second session of the Thirty-seventh 
Congress saw Davis's last appearance in public 
life and found him ardent and forceful as 
ever. At the very opening of the session,^^ he 
made an unsuccessful attempt to have an 
amendment to the Constitution reported, per- 
mitting export duties to be laid, and he se- 
cured the reference to the Election Commit- 
tee of a petition from Louisianians, protesting 
against the seating of persons claiming to have 
been elected to the House from that State.^* 

On December 15, still protesting against the 



CHAPTER IX— 1863-1865 317 

foreign policy of Lincoln in reference to Mex- 
ico, Davis offered a resolution similar to the 
resolution which he had presented on June 27, 
but the House was no longer swayed by him. 
A Presidential election had intervened and the 
resolution was laid on the table by a vote of 
69 to 63.^^ Smarting under this defeat, Davis 
immediately asked to be excused from the 
Committee on Foreign Affairs, since he dif- 
fered from the majority of the House.^*^ He 
recited the unanimous passage of the resolu- 
tion of April 4, and the fact that three days 
later Seward ''directed our representatives 
abroad virtually to apologize to the French 
government for the resolution," and even 
"presumed to impeach Congress of usurpation 
in undertaking to prescribe to the President 
rules to govern his foreign policy. That cor- 
respondence was made the subject of a circu- 
lar by the French government to all the gov- 
ernments of the world, and in the debates in 
the French Assembly the world was given to 
understand that the resolution was a vain and 
presumptuous usurpation." Seward's letter 
'Vas in a tone that was not respectful to the 
dignity and authority of the House of Repre- 
sentatives." Davis maintained that ''The Sec- 
retary of State, before all Europe, in a matter 
of the greatest moment, slapped the House of 
Representatives in the face, and the House of 



3i8 HENRY WINTER DAVIS 

Representatives says it will not even assert its 
dignity." The members of the House has- 
tened to assure Davis of their confidence in 
him. They had yielded, because there was 
nothing to be gained by further protest. S. S. 
Cox supported Davis's position as to Seward, 
but would not vote to excuse him from the 
committee, and testified to ^'his ability, to his 
earnestness, to his energy, and to his outspoken 
integrity." Blaine could not support Davis, 
but could not excuse him from the commit- 
tee. Thaddeus Stevens, who took Davis's 
view of the action of the Administration, 
urged Davis not to consider the vote of the 
Elouse as a personal reflection upon him. 
Boutwell said that the majority cast no reflec- 
tion on Davis, and that ''no gentleman enjoys 
to a greater, if to an equal, extent the respect 
and confidence of members on this ^^ side, and, 
as far as I know, on the other side." Davis's 
resolution went too far. The President 
should be arraigned for disregarding the 
expressed judgment of Congress, when 
only one House had expressed such a 
judgment. Farnsworth expressed his high 
opinion of Davis, and said that he had 
moved to lay the resolution on the table 
without disrespect for Davis.^^ Davis closed 
the debate, saying: ''I have been brought up 
on defeats; I have lived in minorities." Only 



CHAPTER IX— 1863-1865 319 

one member of the Committee on Foreign Af- 
fairs dissented from the resolution, which was 
caused by the fact that ''a free nation on our 
borders lay bleeding in the talons of the 
French eagle, and a vagrant adventurer, who 
had never seen the soil of Mexico, called him- 
self her emperor." The precedents showed 
that Congress had the right to declare and 
prescribe foreign policy, and not the Presi- 
dent alone, as Seward asserted. Davis distin- 
guished between his position as chairman and 
that of a member of a committee, and stated 
that he felt that he was not the representative 
of the House on this question. He was not 
willing to submit to a surrender of the power 
of the people, and asserted that a Congres- 
sional vote is not a proper subject of executive 
criticism. The House refused to excuse Davis 
from his position. Four days later he reintro- 
duced his resolution,^^ and when Farnsworth 
again moved to lay it on the table, Davis won 
by 73 to 49. He then moved the previous 
question, and carried it by a vote of 71 to 56. 
The resolution was divided, and then the for- 
mer part was adopted by a vote of 118 to 8, 
and the latter by a vote of 68 to 58. 

Of this victory, Davis's bitter enemy, Welles, 
wrote :^^ ''There is a disposition to make the 
Legislature the controlling power of the Gov- 
ernment. The whole was conceived in a bad 



320 HENRY WINTER DAVIS 

spirit, and is discreditable to the getters up 
and those who passed the resolutions. Davis 
has never been and never will be a useful 
member of Congress. Although possessing 
talents, he is factious, uneasy and unprinci- 
pled. He is just now connected with a clique 
of malcontents, most of whom were gathering 
a few months ago with Chase." ^"^ 

Davis's hostility to the Administration was 
shown ^°^ by his speech favoring investigation 
of military imprisonments. John Ganson, of 
New York, had moved to have a jail delivery 
from the old Capitol and Carroll prisons. 
Stevens opposed the motion, while S. S. Cox 
favored it, and afterwards wrote that Davis 
placed ''the matter on the highest ground." 
He demanded that the committee examine the 
facts and spread them before the American 
people. ''This is bold ground. It is worthy 
of the parliamentary heroism in the time of 
the Stuarts and their prerogative. It is an 
audacious act in a member of the dominant 
and arrogant party." ^°^ 

The law suspending the writ of habeas cor- 
pus, in Davis's opinion, allowed too limited a 
discretion to the President, but, being law, 
should have been obeyed. "This suspension 
is not a substitute for the criminal law, but is 
political in its character, merely precaution- 
ary to avert dangers, not to punish crimes; it 



CHAPTER IX— 1863-186? 321 

looks to the future, not to the past; it is, in war 
or in grave political danger, what security to 
keep the peace is to the daily administration 
of justice. I am ready to vote to enlarge the 
liberty which it confers upon the President, 
but shall vote to stop the abuse of continued, 
perpetual and reiterated disobedience to law." 
He maintained that the resolution was not un- 
necessarily censorious, in reference to Lincoln, 
or his Cabinet officers; for ''many abuses con- 
nected with a war of this magnitude may not 
come to their knowledge." In Maryland, for 
example, arrests have been made by a person 
calling himself a provost-marshal, a term 
not known to the National laws, who acted ab- 
solutely without the knowledge of the Secre- 
tary of War. ''The very independence of 
American character is being broken down un- 
der the unchecked license of military arrests, 
and people come to believe that the existence 
of a state of war justifies anything in the shape 
of discretionary and arbitrary authority on the 
part of military officers." Men were afraid 
to complain and, thereby, incur the displeas- 
ure of the military authorities. The Secretary 
of War had "endeavored to mitigate the 
abuses, but oppressions are inseparable from 
illegal arrests." Garfield joined Davis, the 
measure was passed, and a reconsideration re- 
fused by a vote of 136 to 5. 
21 



322 HENRY WINTER DAVIS 

When the Legislative Appropriation Bill 
was debated/"* Davis said that he usually fol- 
lowed the Ways and Means Committee with 
half an eye, but he now opposed an increase 
in a salary asked, because of depreciation of 
the currency, as he thought the remedy lay in 
improving the currency. He was willing to 
vote for an increase in a salary, when it was 
inadequate on its original basis and had no 
just proportion to salaries paid for like serv- 
ices in the ordinary business of the country. 
He also promised to support any measure 
which tended to deduce the volume of the cur- 
rency and thereby to add to its value. 

On the next day, in pursuance of the same 
hard money principle, in Committee of the 
Whole, he objected to the issue of more treas- 
ury notes and maintained that, although the 
notes be not a legal tender in form, their value 
would be the same, since they were susceptible 
of use in ordinary exchange and, therefore, 
they would inflate the currency. ^'I am not 
willing to put in the hands of any officer," con- 
tinued Davis, ^'the power to issue one more 
dollar to be converted into a circulating medi- 
um." He believed that the needs of the Gov- 
ernment should be supplied by loans and of- 
fered a motion that notes, issued to pay the 
expenses of government, be not legal tender, 
nor be of a less denomination than $ioo. He 



CHAPTER IX— 1863-1865 323 

carried the House with him, by a vote of 54 to 
39; but Thaddeus Stevens stated that, if this 
amendment remained, he would not ask to 
pass the bill. When report was made to the 
House, the provision was stricken out, by the 
narrow margin of 60 votes to 63. 

A month later, when the loan bill was be- 
fore the House, Davis moved ^*^ to strike out 
provisions that the interest should not ex- 
ceed 73/10 per cent, and that the rate 
of interest be expressed on the bonds. 
He said that, under the bill, the Sec- 
retary of the Treasury might issue coupon 
bonds, or treasury notes, and increase the in- 
flation under which the treasury suffered. 
"You have not disposed of the currency ques- 
tion, when you have disposed of legal tender 
bank notes, which are what have, in great 
measure, inflated the currency." Davis as- 
serted that "Currency is anything that is in 
such form and has such value that it will pass, 
conveniently and readily, from hand to hand 
in lieu of coin." The Government made notes 
legal tender, in order to compel acceptance of 
them and the act would have been equally ef- 
fective, whether or not those notes had a value 
independent of that given them by the coercive 
authority. Without such coercive power, "if 
the Government issues treasury notes, sub-di- 
vided into sums, which will answer the pur- 



324 HENRY WINTER DAVIS 

poses of currency, in such sums as will pass 
from hand to hand in the daily commerce of 
the land, so long as the credit of the Govern- 
ment is equal to the credit of a bank, the treas- 
ury note will stand as a bank note and, if there 
be two treasury notes, while the market only 
calls for one, there will be a corresponding in- 
flation of currency and corresponding depre- 
ciation of value." Whether 'Ve shall adopt 
a specie basis," or issue currency notes to pay 
interest, was a question on which Davis enter- 
tained serious doubts. "Doubtless, it would 
be very convenient to permit the Secretary of 
the Treasury to put the credit of the Govern- 
ment in any form that would suit the con- 
venience of the occasion, but it is a matter of 
life and death that there should be restored a 
normal ratio between the currency of the coun- 
try and the standards of value — gold and sil- 
ver.^°^ He wished to reduce the "enormous 
volume" of the currency and believed that 
"now, when we can see the end of the rebel- 
lion, the credit of the Government can raise 
by loan what is needed." Every note of the 
United States, of a denomination under $50, 
passing from hand to hand, inflated the cur- 
rency. "If you double the currency, you 
must double the taxes and, if there be any one 
thing true, both in point of common sense and 
political economy, it is that every step you 



CHAPTER IX— 1863-1865 325 

take in the direction I have indicated is a step 
towards lightening the burdens of the people, 
restoring the rates of value, and making that 
which is the nominal standard of value ap- 
proximate to the real one." On February 28, 
Davis followed his speech by moving that no 
note, hereafter issued by Congress, shall be a 
legal tender and that no treasury note be issued 
for a less sum than $50, but he was defeated by 
a vote of 55 to 86. 

On January 30, Davis made the first of 
several speeches, advocating the establishment 
of a Board of Admiralty.^"^ On February 3, 
Davis again advocated his proposal.^"^ The 
condition of the navy and the danger of war 
with foreign powers, ''so soon as the rebellion 
shall be suppressed," made ''it a matter of 
vital moment that we should not be deluded 
by any apparent strength." He had drawn 
up his proposition, after conference with the 
"first officers of the navy," who, like him, 
trembled at its present condition. The naval 
committee had deliberated upon it for nearly 
a year, yet they refused to report it, so Davis 
tried to incorporate it as a rider to the Appro- 
priation Bill and have it freely debated. He 
bitterly said that there was little chance of the 
success of his measure, since the administra- 
tion opposed it, but he wished to force a vote 
upon it. During the War, Secretary Welles 



326 HENRY WINTER DAVIS 

and ^^his irresponsible Assistant Secretary, 
who ^"^^ is the real and acting Secretary," had 
changed the navy to convert us into a first class 
naval power, but most of the ships they had 
provided would be of no use in a war with a 
European power, as Davis showed in great 
detail. The most of the vessels had been use- 
ful in a civil war, but would be useless in a 
foreign one. He then discussed the English 
and French plans of naval administration and 
maintained that his plan copied their excel- 
lencies. The Secretary was left free to act, 
but only after he had advised with ^'men of 
professional standing, competent ability, and 
of high and permanent rank." Previously, 
there had been such temporary boards; now 
there should be a permanent one. During the 
war, a lack of responsibility had led to ''the 
rash empiricism, the scandalous improvidence, 
and the costly failures which mark the admin- 
istration of the department." He believed 
that "half a dozen rebel cruisers could not 
have swept our commerce from the ocean, or 
driven it to take refuge under foreign flags, 
and destroyed many millions of property, and 
lighted every sea with the conflagration of our 
ships for three years, had any body of compe- 
tent naval officers been invited to devise a 
systematic plan for their pursuit and capture." 
With proper advice, the Port Royal expedi- 



CHAPTER IX— 1863-1865 327 

tion could have been followed by the fall of 
Savannah and Charleston, instead of being 
left ^'barren to the nation of half its rightful 
fruits." Davis was not ^'seeking to cast im- 
putations upon any one;" but endeavored ''to 
expose the evils of a merely personal and ir- 
responsible administration of the department" 
and to propose ''an adequate remedy." He 
then proceeded to attack the policy of build- 
ing monitors, whose usefulness he decried. 
Rather should the Ironsides have been multi- 
plied, as it "met the approval of naval officers." 
He claimed that the popular clamor and the 
"pressure of iron contractors," not the advice 
of naval officers, produced the orders for the 
building of monitors, and that such vessels 
had failed, by the confession of the depart- 
ment, and had been found as useless "for a 
sea-going vessel of war" as well as "to go in 
shallow water." After a detailed statement 
of his position, he closed his speech with the 
assertion that the course of the department 
showed "the necessity of some supervising 
board," to "secure to the nation the money that 
it is now expending in the structure of vessels." 

On the following day, Davis spoke for the 
third time, referred to Farragut's capture of 
Mobile with wooden ships and said that his 
opponents grossly misrepresented his propo- 
sition.^^ On the sixth, Davis made his last un- 



328 HENRY WINTER DAVIS 

successful effort to carry his point/^*^ He 
spoke with great bitterness, accused the Naval 
Committee with failing to treat his proposi- 
tion with ^^ordinary fairness," or to show that 
they had even read it.^^^ They had accused 
him of being in ^'ill temper," but that accusa- 
tion did not ^'affect the value of the measure." 

He retorted that he had not a personal ac- 
quaintance with either Welles nor Fox, that 
he had not received favors from them as had 
two of the three members of the committee 
who had replied to him, nor was he interested 
in the construction of ironclads, as was the 
third member who had spoken in reply. His 
opponents had charged him with copying the 
British Board of Admiralty, and that the 
Naval Commissioners of 1815 in the United 
States had been such a board as Davis de- 
scribed. These statements, Davis denied and 
asserted that he proposed ''not to remove the 
bureaus, not to substitute any other organiza- 
tion to discharge their ministerial duties, not 
to interfere with the free discretion of the 
Secretary; but to interpose, on the French 
system, between the administrative discretion 
of the Secretary and the ministerial obedience 
of the bureaus, a council of naval officers, 
whose advice the Secretary may command on 
all matters, whose opinions he must take on 
some matters, but which, when taken, he is 



CHAPTER IX— 1863-1865 329 

free to disregard." He believed that he was 
supporting the 'Very foundation" of the 
American system of government, ''that is to 
have a council of advisers around an executive 
head, a principle used, indeed, by Napoleon 
in the early days of his empire." This board 
of professional officers, appointed by the 
President, would not "divide the responsi- 
bility," nor delay the Secretary's judgment, 
but put "light around him." Such a Board 
would have more weight than one merely 
summoned by the Secretary. After another 
extended attack upon the monitors, Davis re- 
turned to his favorite theme, the exaltation of 
the power of Congress and maintained that, 
so "long as Congress will not assert its su- 
premacy over the departments, and prescribe 
such organization of them as will give this 
nation the benefit of its resources, so long as 
Congress stops to inquire what the depart- 
ments wish, instead of imposing on them what 
the interest of the nation requires; we will be 
powerless before the nations of the world." 
He insisted that he was "pleading the cause 
of the American navy against the Navy De- 
partment" and instanced, as proving the des- 
potism of the department, the case of Admiral 
Wilkes, who had been punished "for contro- 
verting statements in the report of the De- 
partment, seriously affecting his honor as an 



330 HENRY WINTER DAVIS 

officer." In conclusion, he insisted that he 
was not influenced by his ''estimate of the per- 
sonal value" of Secretary Welles; but looked 
to ''the day, when the American nation will 
have to vindicate its power before the nations 
of the world, now insidiously seeking its ruin, 
not by stealthy depredations on unarmed tra- 
ders, but with a navy bearing proudly the ban- 
ner of the republic over the seas." 

Ashley's bill for the reconstruction of the 
seceded States had been postponed, in Janu- 
ary, against Davis's wish."^ His breach with 
the administration was wide ^^^ and the parties 
on either side of it were bitter in their re- 
marks concerning those on the other one.^^* 

In his brief, vigorous speech on February "^ 
21, which closed the debate upon Ashley's 
bill, Davis reiterated the position he had 
previously taken, but with an advance, for the 
bill provided that all citizens of the United 
States, instead of all white residents, should be 
enrolled as voters. In general, the bill was 
the same as that passed at the last session. 
Some had voted for it before, who opposed it 
now, because it was the "will of the President 
that has been discovered since the bill had 
been passed." Davis prophesied that "the 
course of military events seems to indicate 
that, possibly by the fourth of next July, prob- 
ably by December, organized and armed 



CHAPTER IX— 1863-1865 331 

rebellion will cease to lift its brazen head in 
the land." ''If this bill," therefore, ''does not 
become a law," and Davis gloomily feared its 
defeat, when Congress again meets, "at our 
door, clamorous and dictatorial, will be 65 
representatives from the States now in rebel- 
lion and 22 Senators claiming admission." 
"You can prevent the rise of the flood now; 
but, when it is up, you cannot stop it." These 
claimants of seats will be either those who 
have been rebels or, like those chosen in Louis- 
iana, "servile tools of the executive," who will 
be supplanted by "rebel representatives" after 
two years. A declaratory resolution will not be 
sufficient, stating that members of Congress 
shall "not be received from any State hereto- 
fore declared in rebellion, until a joint act or 
resolution of Congress , shall have declared 
that they have organized a new government." 
There must be a law forbidding an election, 
as was done in the proposed Statute. After 
such a law, for the President to sanction such 
an election "would be an impeachable ofifence 
and, if he did not sanction it, the question 
would never be here to trouble us." The pro- 
visional governors ought to be appointed, ac- 
cording to law, and the President should not re- 
main "in power, with no law to guide him." 
Ten years before, the United States Govern- 
ment was one of law. Davis had "lived to see 



332 HENRY WINTER DAVIS 

it a government of personal will. Congress 
has dwindled from a power to dictate law and 
the policy of the government, to a commission 
to audit accounts and appropriate moneys, to 
enable the executive to execute his will and 
not ours." Dawes had charged that the bill 
revived the ''black laws of the South." Davis 
denied this charge and stated that the law 
provided that both negroes and whites were 
''to be tried by the same court, under the same 
law, upon the same evidence, for the same 
crime." There was "no time fixed, within 
which the provisional governor must call 
upon the people to elect whether they will 
exercise a State government or not," for that 
matter was necessarily left to his judgment. 
The real objection was not to the length of 
time of the rule which the bill prescribed, but 
to the prescription of any rule at all. Davis 
would not agree that one-tenth of the voters 
might "stain the national triumph, by creating 
a low, wretched, vulgar, corrupt and coward- 
ly oligarchy to govern the free men of the 
United States — the national arms to guarantee 
and enforce their oppressions; not by my vote, 
sir, not by my vote." He insisted that the 
House must "say whether it prefers arbitrary 
discretion or legal rule;" whether or not it 
would "erect a barrier now" to prevent "the 
pressure of the times and the clamor of the 
day" from overwhelming their successors. 



CHAPTER IX— 1863-1865 333 

In spite of all Davis's efforts and his alli- 
ance with Stevens, the bill was laid on the 
table by a vote of 91 to 64 and his defeat was 
complete.^^^ 

At the very end of the session/^^ when the 
Miscellaneous Appropriation Bill was on its 
final passage,"^ Davis delivered his last Con- 
gressional speech in behalf of an amendment 
that no person should be tried by a court- 
martial, or by a military commission in any 
State or Territory where the Federal Courts 
are open, except persons actually in military 
or naval service, or rebel enemies charged 
with being spies, and that all proceedings con- 
trary thereto should be void and the persons 
held in custody through such proceedings 
should be discharged. He maintained that 
that his amendment cast an ^^mputation on no 
officer; but, recognizing the error which the 
people, as well as the Government, have, in 
common, committed against the foundation of 
their own safety, now, before the very idea of 
the supremacy of the law has faded from the 
country, to restore it to its power." ^^^ The 
amendment was confined in its operation to 
civilians in the loyal States. 

The Speaker ruled the amendment out of 
order, as not germane to the bill, but the 
House overruled him by a vote of 50 to 65. 
Stevens then opposed the proposition, saying 



334 HENRY WINTER DAVIS 

that debate should not be delayed. Davis de- 
nied ever embarrassing '^the proceedings of 
the House by any pertinacious adherence to 
schemes of my own," as he insinuated had been 
done by Stevens. ^'Such a proposition" as this 
amendment 'Vill never be out of place while 
the voice of liberty is heard." Davis had 
watched the ^'gradual intrusion of the mili- 
tary on the rights of the citizens, from the out- 
break of the rebellion," when McClellan ''set 
the bad example, in an order illegally sus- 
pending the writ of habeas corpus in Mary- 
land." There had been unconstitutional usur- 
pations, which ought not to be continued. The 
ridiculousness of the military position was 
shown by the fact that a Baltimorean had been 
placed in prison by a military tribunal for 
counterfeiting Confederate currency! Davis 
well said that 'T can state no other fact that 
will better illustrate the insolence of irrespon- 
sible military tribunals, known to no law, ap- 
pointed under no law, restrained by no law, 
authorized by nobody." When Stevens inter- 
rupted, saying that a ''man who was fool 
enough to spend his time in such work ought 
to suffer some severe punishment," Davis wit- 
tily retorted that: "If all fools are at the mercy 
of the military courts and they are to judge of 
it, they have a wide jurisdiction." When 
Davis had been asked to importune Lincoln 



CHAPTER IX— 1863-1865 335 

for the pardon of a man convicted by a mili- 
tary commission for selling goods to a govern- 
ment spy, in the belief that they were to be sent 
into the Southern Confederacy, he had re- 
fused to '^beg, as a favor, the personal liberty 
of an American, illegally and oppressively 
condemned," especially since ''the President 
had twice refused to refer his case to the courts 
of the United States." He was alarmed, be- 
cause military courts try ''loyal men in loyal 
States, where no war rages, for violation of 
what they call the usages of war," and thus 
annul every act of Congress. Even guerrillas, 
such as are captured in Kentucky, should have 
a civil trial. He held that the demand for 
military courts came from the fact that a 
"sharper and easier way to deal with crimi- 
nals as enemies" was desired. "It is the cry 
for vengeance and not justice." Maryland 
was a State that had "been disturbed by in- 
ternal dissensions," and Davis feared to per- 
mit "military tribunals to apply their harsh, 
sharp vengeance between men who live on ad- 
jacent estates, at the instigation of personal 
revenge, of malice, without local public trial, 
unprotected by the rights secured to them by 
the Constitution and the laws." If men "have 
committed acts which render them dangerous, 
but are not criminal, or can not be proved, we 
have authorized the suspension of the habeas 



336 HENRY WINTER DAVIS 

corpus," and that is a sufficient safeguard. A 
provision declaring acts of military commis- 
sions void should be placed in the law, so that 
a loud voice ^'may go out to the people, an- 
nouncing that their representatives recognize 
that fact, and encouraging the people to seek 
redress," not by crawling solicitations at the 
hands of the President of the United States, 
but of right by law, before the courts, which 
are the glory and the safety of the American 
Republic." As a military commission had 
no jurisdiction, condemnation by that tribunal 
would not be a conviction to prevent a court 
trial. ^'Public safety never has required these 
illegal and summary trials; it now requires 
that they cease." Davis had prepared his 
amendment, after careful thought and fre- 
quent consultations, and was not willing to 
change one word of it. John F. Farnsworth, 
of Illinois, rose to insist that the vigorous 
measures of the President had alone saved the 
day in Maryland, but Davis came to the de- 
fense of the loyalty of the State with the asser- 
tion "that there never was a day when the 
people of Maryland were not masters of her 
fortune and masters of the Capital of the 
United States, and that Mr. Lincoln was in- 
augurated there only because they were 
loyal." There had been no need for Lincoln 
to flee through Baltimore. Farnsworth con- 



CHAPTER IX— 1863-1865 337 

tinued, emphasizing the need of military tri- 
bunals and regretting that Davis should make 
a speech on which he received congratulations 
from Democrats such as Harris, of Maryland, 
and Voorhees. 

Of Davis's part in this debate, S. S. Cox'"" 
vv^rote that he ''rose again to a height of grand 
argument in favor of personal liberty." His 
speech was ''an awakening to those who were 
then with us." He "reproduced the eloquence 
of Pinkney, with the cogency of Wirt." After 
the speech, "amidst the wildest applause, the 
three years of arbitrary arrogance were buried 
beneath the reprobation of the House of Rep- 
resentatives," for the "popular branch of Con- 
gress ^^^ rose above all debasing thought to lis- 
ten to the teachings" of Davis. "It is due to 
the memory of Henry Winter Davis," Cox 
adds, that "the new generation should know 
and appreciate the courageous and the intel- 
lectual stamina of that most gifted orator." 

The House agreed to Davis's amendment by 
a vote of 75 to 64, but the Senate refused to con- 
cur therewith. The committee of conference 
failed to agree, and Davis reported for them, 
on March 3,^^ advocating the failure of the 
whole bill, rather than the withdrawal of a 
provision "touching so nearly the right of 
every citizen to his personal liberty and the 
very endur.ance of republican institutions." 
22 



338 HENRY WINTER DAVIS 

The committee recommended that this law be 
left ^'standing as a broken dike in the midst 
of the rising flood of lawless power around us, 
to show to this generation how high that flood 
of lawless power has risen, in only three years 
of civil war, as a warning to those who are to 
come after us, as an awakening to those who 
are now with us." He would permit no item 
of the bill to pass, not even the appropriation 
for the insane, and as the House agreed with 
him, the bill failed.^^ 

NOTES ON CHAPTER IX. 



9 Nicolay and Hay, 113. 



2. Nicolay and Hay say that Lincoln did all in his power to 
heal the breach with Davis, but elicit this as their only proof. 

3. War of Rebellion Off. Recs., Series 3, vol. 3, p. 877. 

4. Outcome of the Civil War, p. 73. 

5. On December 15. 

6. Vide McCarthy, Lincoln's Plan of Reconstruction, p. 224. 

7. On January 29. 

8. McCarthy, p. 57, animadverts to the fact that Davis alone 
of those who spoke approved the action of the military gov- 
ernor. On December 17 Davis voted with the majority, when, 
by a vote of 67 to 90, the House condemned Harrington's Re- 
solves condemning arbitrary arrests. On January 11 he intro- 
duced a bill requiring certain persons to take the oath of alle- 
giance. 

9. This proclamation accompanied the President's annual 
message to Congress and surprised the people. It offered am- 
nesty to the majority of those in rebellion, upon their taking an 
oath to support the Union in the future as well as the legisla- 
tion and proclamations which had been made concerning 
slavery. When at least one-tenth of the voters of any State 
should take such an oath and should re-establish a republican 



CHAPTER IX— 1863-1865 339 

form of government, that government would be recognized by 
the Federal authority. The proclamation further stated that 
Lincoln would welcome the abolition of slavery in any such 
State. In his message Lincoln defended the proclamation as 
constitutional and wise. In his comprehensive and fair life cf 
Lincoln, in the American Statesmen Series, Morse (vol. 2, p. 228) 
does not sufficiently recognize the constitutional objection of 
Davis and those who agreed with him to the President's taking 
upon him to "guarantee'' to a State a "republican form of gov- 
ernment," rather than leaving this guarantee to Congress. 

10. On June 29 he moved again to lay on the table the 
whole subject of representatives from Arkansas, and won by a 
vote of 80 to 46, while 56 members did not vote. On May 23 
he objected to paying a Virginia contestant who held a Federal 
office, as, if he were allowed his seat, he would have been al- 
lowed only one salary. 

11. Speeches and Addresses, 343. 

12. Davis maintained that the Constitution meant that "the 
forfeiture worked must be effected during life," while Cox had 
argued that "the forfeiture, when worked, shall endure for the 
life of the party." Davis replied that "attainder worked no 
forfeiture, after the death of the party, except by the corrup- 
tion of blood." Otherwise, Congress would be able to confis- 
cate lands for other crimes, but not for treason, and for that 
crime could put a man to death and seize his personal property, 
but not his lands, and the Constitution would sanction the "un- 
republican discrimination between real and personal property." 

13. Sherman's Recollections, vol. i, p. 359. 

14. On March 22. 

15. Speeches and Addresses, 368. 4 Rhodes, 485, refers to 
Davis as "an orator and a man of brilliant parts, who thought 
the President's scheme neither coherent nor orderly, and ob- 
jected to it strongly because it did not contain a sufficient guar- 
anty for the abolition of slavery," who "made an energetic 
speech." 4 Pierce's Sumner, 217, calls the Davis-Wade bill as 
liberal as the President's policy, "more conservative in requir- 
ing a larger proportion of voters, and wiser, as well as juster, 
in enforcing, as a peremptory condition of restoration, perpetual 
abolition of slavery in the States." 

16. 9 Nicolay and Hay, 116, speak of it as a "speech of ex- 
traordinary energy. Without hesitation, he declared it (the 



340 HENRY WINTER DAVIS 

bill) a test and standard of anti-slavery orthodoxy, and asserted 
boldly that Congress and Congress alone had the power to re- 
vive the reign of law in territory which, through rebellion, had 
put itself outside law." They assert that in the preamble to 
the bill (p. 115) Davis expressed, with "habitual boldness and 
lucidity," his "fundamental thesis that the rebellious States 
were out of the Union." This, of course, is extremely inaccu- 
rate. But Burgess (Reconstruction and the Constitution, i8) 
speaks of the Davis-Wade plan as "nearer to some doctrine on 
reconstruction" than Lincoln's, and states that the bill contained 
a "true theory," in claiming reconstruction to be a legislative 
problem, in requiring loyalty to the United States of a majority 
of the white males as a basis of local government, and in as- 
serting a power to abolish slavery within the limits of the se- 
ceding States, dealing with these as territories, or districts, sub- 
ject to the exclusive authority of the central government. The 
theory of the bill was "sound political science, and the Presi- 
dent ought to have heeded its teachings." 

17. Reprinted in 9 Nicolay and Hay, 114. 

18. See Appleton's Annual Cyclopedia, 1864, p. 293. 

19. S. S. Cox, Three Decades, 435, says Davis's bill, like 
Lincoln's, had the defect of being "based on the policy of 
forced emancipation." 

20. Outcome of the Civil War, 139. An illustration of hero 
worship is shown in Hosmer's sentence: "In spite of the bitter- 
ness, Lincoln's all-abounding magnanimity wrapped Davis with- 
in his regard. The President could not win him, but he stead- 
fastly endured striking a return blow." Vide, 6 Schouler's U. S. 
469. 9 Nicolay and Hay, 119, say Lincoln refused to exercise 
influence on this debate. 

21. 4 Rhodes, 485; Appleton Annual Cyclopedia, 1864, p. 
307; 9 Nicolay and Hay, 120. 

22. 2 Twenty Years in Congress, 42. 

23. Vide 9 Nicolay and Hay, 115, who claim that Davis's 
design was to put a stop to the work of reconstruction which 
Lincoln had begun. 

24. Vol. I, p. 361. 

25. On December 17 he reported favorably a resolution to 
have 10,000 extra copies printed of the papers on foreign affairs 
which accompanied the President's message. On December 19 



CHAPTER IX— 1 863- 1 865 341 

he secured the passage by the House of a resolution concerning 
the activities of the French in Mexico. Vide Schouler, vol. 6, 
p. 432. 

26. On February 4 he favored printing ten thousand extra 
copies of the diplomatic correspondence, as Seward wished done, 
so as to state our case fully and authentically to the nations of 
Europe. On March 2 he introduced a resolution requesting the 
President to send the Mexican and Venezuelan correspondence 
to the House, and on the i6th he moved to have referred to the 
Committee on Foreign Affairs the message of the President 
concerning the claims against Ecuador. 

27. Speeches and Addresses, 395. Appleton's Annual Cyclo- 
pedia, 1864, p. 314. 

28. 4 Rhodes U. S., 471; 7 Nicolay and Hay, 407. 

29. Vide 4 Pierce's Sumner, 193. 

30. Despatches of April 22 and May 2. 

31. On June 4 and 6. 

32. On June 27. 

33. 4 Nicolay and Hay, 407, say that Davis did not "con- 
vince a considerable portion of the public that the course of the 
Government (they mean the President) lacked dignity or fair- 
ness." 

34. On January 28 he introduced a bill to regulate dismis- 
sions of officers in the Army and Navy, and on February 10 he 
sarcastically proposed that the President order General Lee not 
to move on Washington until the appeals from the draft were 
decided. With Thaddeus Stevens, in this month, he opposed as 
premature the passage of the bill establishing the rank of lieu- 
tenant-general (I Blaine, Twenty Years, 510). On April 21 he 
moved to repay Baltimore for money expended on the fortifica- 
tions about that city. On July i he moved to concur in amend- 
ments to the Enrollment bill. 

35. On February 10. 

36. In like spirit he urged on April 30 and May 25 that the 
negro regiments be not put on a different basis as to support of 
families from the white regiments. 

37. Speeches and Addresses, 351. 

38. Speeches and Addresses, 351. 

39. On July I. 



342 HENRY WINTER DAVIS 

40. Speeches and Addresses, 410. 

41. He regretted that illness had kept him from any earlier 
discussion of the bill. 

42. Speeches and Addresses, 353. 

43. St. Mary's, Charles, Somerset, Worcester, Howard, Balti- 
more. Vide Brackett, Negro in Maryland, pp. 254-262. 

44. In Howard the vote was 55 for and 1397 against; in 
Kent 74 for, 1502 against; in Baltimore 684 for and 5364 against. 

45. Speeches and Addresses, 397. Gideon Welles heard him 
and wrote in his Diary (vol. 2, p. 9) that the speech was 
"declamatory, eloquent; but the debate did not please me, nor 
the subject." 

46. I Diary, 482. 

47. I Diary, 479. October 31, 1863. When Admiral Dupont 
died, on June 23, 1865, Welles wrote (H Diary, 320), with a 
vindictiveness that went beyond the grave, that, in October, 1863, 
Dupont prepared an "adroit letter," in concert with Davis, to be 
used as an assault on Welles in Congress, but that Welles an- 
swered in such manner "as to close up Dupont and Davis got 
more than he asked." 

48. H Diary, 117, 118. August 23, 1864. 

49. Welles had written as early as January 6 (I Diary, 505) 
that he heard of Davis as being among those "cavilling and ex- 
erting themselves to bear down upon the Engineer in Chief." 
Of the speech on February 25 he wrote that (i Diary, 531) 
Davis "flung his vindictive spite more malignantly at Fox, 
whom he called a cotton-spinner, than at me." F. P. Blair an- 
swered Davis on February 27, regretting his absence from the 
House at the time and calling him a Jacobin. 

50. Dupont commanded the expedition against Port Royal, 
and wrote Davis on the eve of the attack on Hilton Head, on 
November 6, i86i. The letter is printed in the Army and Navy 
Journal, vol. 51, p. 1237, May 30, 1914. 

51. On April 11 Davis introduced a bill to establish a board 
of naval administration. On May 16 he asked for the proceed- 
ings of the court-martial on Commodore Charles Wilkes. On 
May 13 Admiral Shubrick told Welles that Dupont, under 
Davis's "control," was writing a book. (2 Diary, 30.) 

52. On June 6 he expressed the wish to legalize the acts of 
the United States District Court for Virginia, which is required 



CHAPTER IX— 1 863- 1 865 343 

by law to meet at Richmond, but which really met in Alexan- 
dria. 

53. On January 12. 

54. On April 2. 

55. In a contest between State and National banks, he wished 
the support of that bank, and was opposed to the principle of 
individual responsibility, as being a needless trammeling of in- 
nocent persons. 

56. On April 4. 

57. On July 2 he proposed a ten per cent, tax on State bank 
notes, and when that proposal failed, a three per cent, tax on 
the average amount of notes annually in circulation, but failed 
to carry that proposition also. 

58. On June 8. 

59. On June 9 he expressed the belief that "in this country 
fortunes are ephemeral.' On July 2 he opposed the grant of the 
hall of the House for an Indepndence Day celebration of the 
National Democratic Association, saying he never spoke in the 
House except on a legislative subject, and never voted to allow 
any outside body to use the hall. 

60. On June 9 he objected to giving the Select Committee on 
a New York and Washington Railroad leave to report at any 
particular time, as the bill might seriously affect local interest 
in Maryland. 

61. On April 9. 

62. On May 6. 

63. He regretted that Dawes was absent. 

64. He quoted Harry Percy's speech, "I remember when the 
fight was done," and sneered at Dawes's reference to the open- 
ing of the Massachusetts elections with prayer, and reminded 
Ganson, a Democrat from New York, who had spoken against 
Davis, of past Democratic frauds in Louisiana, New York and 
Pennsylvania. 

65. After this speech, B. G. Harris made an attack upon 
Davis, which the latter ignored. Harris said that "Massachu- 
setts, in carrying out outrages, was but acting upon principles 
which the member from Baltimore City was prominent in inau- 
gurating in Maryland and of which he reaped the personal 
benefit, which it was calculated through force and violence to 



344 HENRY WINTER DAVIS 

confer." He was a "slanderer." The Speaker then called 
Harris to order. When the latter resumed his attack he said 
that Davis "consumed an hour in giving history, if statements 
so false can properly be called history, of himself and his Plug 
Uglys. Three times has he come to this House by the aid of 
bludgeons and daggers of the Plug Uglys, and he now occupies 
his place here by favor of the bayonets of brutal tyrants." 

66. Welles knew nothing of it (2 Diary, 98). 

67. 9 Nicolay and Hay, 122; Appleton's Annual Cyclopedia, 
1864, p. 307. 

67a. Kernan vs. City of Portland, 223 U. S. Reports, 118 at 
151. See Wm. W. Pierson on Texas vs. White, 19 S.W. Hist. 
Quar. 2, 22. 

68. Vol. IV, p. 219. 

69. 9 Nicolay and Hay, 124. 

70. Speeches and Addresses, 415. 6 Schouler, 470, says the 
Davis-Wade manifesto was "violent, and insinuated what was 
wholy unfair," that Lincoln "meant to reconstruct the South so 
as to hold electoral votes in pledge." Riddle's Wade, p. 259, 
calls the manifesto an "admirable performance, saving its tone, 
reviewing the whole ground" and showing the "world for the 
first time how widely asunder the President and Congress 
were." 

71. Burgess, Reconstruction, p. 15. Coffin's Lincoln, at page 
431, says more wisely: "In their anger the authors of the mani- 
festo overlooked the one question foremost in the minds of the 
President — the constitutionality of the act." 

72. Speeches and Addresses, 428. 

73. 2 Welles Diary, 98. 

74. 2 Welles Diary, 96. 

75. Vol. 9, pp. 124-126. 

76. McCarthy, p. 278. 

77. On page 283 McCarthy repeats Nicolay and Hay's charge 
that Davis, "though treated with extreme fairness, not to say 
generosity, by the President, pursued toward the Administration 
a course of consistent hostility." Disappointment at not being 
placed in the Cabinet and Davis's "sense of public duty led him 
to think Lincoln scarcely entitled to courteous treatment." For- 
getting that the manifesto was issued, because Congress was not 
in session, McCarthy continues by saying that, if Davis believed 
all he said, he should have impeached Lincoln. The political 



CHAPTER IX— 1 863- 1 865 34.5 

departments of government, according to McCarthy, entered on 
a struggle for power. "Congress had been defeated, and its 
discomfited leaders sought to relieve their feelings by railing at 
the President." These sentiments are, of course, unfair and the 
statement is incorrect. 

78. 2 Blaine, Twenty Years, 42. 

79. 9 Nicolay and Hay, 114, insist, with great unfairness, 
that the breach between Lincoln and Davis was entirely the 
fault of the latter. "In spite of all the efforts which the Presi- 
dent made," they write, "to be on friendly terms with Mr. Davis, 
the difference between them constantly widened. Mr. Davis 
grew continually more confirmed in his attitude of hostility to 
the President. He became one of the most severe and least 
generous critics of the Administration in Congress. He came at 
last to consider the President as unworthy of even respectful 
treatment, and Mr. Seward, in the midst of his energetic and 
aggressive campaign against European unfriendliness, was con- 
tinually attacked by him as a truckler to foreign powers and 
little less than a traitor to his country. The President, how- 
ever, was a man so persistently and incorrigibly just that, even 
in the fact of this provocation, he never lost his high opinion of 
Mr. Davis's ability, nor his confidence in his inherent good in- 
tentions." 

80. 9 Nicolay and Hay, 114. Coffin's Lincoln, p. 464, states 
that when Fox, the Assistant Secretary of the Navy, said to Lin- 
coln: "I am glad that" Davis "has been defeated. He has ma- 
liciously assailed the Navy for the last two years." Lincoln re- 
sponded: "I cannot quite agree with you. You have more of 
the feeling of personal resentment than L Perhaps I have too 
little of it; but I never thought it paid. A man has no time to 
spend half his life in quarrels. If any man ceases to attack me, 
I never remember the past against him." 

81. Speeches and Addresses, XXVII. 

82. Speeches and Addresses, XXII. 

83. Speeches and Addresses, 384. 

84. 2 Diary, 30. 

85. Capt. H. P. Goddard, in Baltimore Sunday Herald of 
March 8, 1903, repeating an anecdote told him by Joseph M. 
Cushing, Esq. James M. Scovel, in 38 Overland Monthly, 204, 
gives a different version of this story. 

86. Speeches and Addresses, 415. 

87. 4 Pierce's Sumner, 251. 



346 HENRY WINTER DAVIS 

88. 4 Rhodes, 518. Ne^w York Sun of June 30, 1889, printed 
letters from Davis on August 19 and 25, and from others written 
in the hope of forcing Lincoln's withdrawal from the Presiden- 
tial canvass (9 Nicolay and Hay, 367). 

89. James M. Scovel, in 38 Overland Monthly, 205, says 
that Davis was present at a White House reception during the 
campaign, and that, on seeing him, Lincoln said to Scovel : 
"This looks well for us. Henry Winter Davis has not called at 
the White House till now, during the three years past." 

90. Speeches and Addresses, 428. Mr. J. F. Essary, in his 
Maryland in National History, at page 240, states that Montgom- 
ery Blair retired from Lincoln's Cabinet in order that Davis's 
support of the Republican ticket might be secured in the Presi- 
dential campaign of 1864. Mr. John T. Graham, who was so 
intimate a friend of Davis that he made the fair copy for the 
press of the Davis-Wade manifesto, stated in December, 191 5, 
that he knew nothing of any such arrangement, and that his re- 
lations to Davis during that time were so close that it was im- 
possible that he could have been ignorant of the matter. 

91. Davis also referred to the riot in Washington in 1857, 
and to Governor Ligon's course of action, as proving that Dem- 
ocrats had no objection to the use of force at elections when 
such use would redound to their advantage. 

92. Lincoln referred neither to his Proclamation nor to the 
manifesto in his message. Burgess, Reconstruction, 18. 

93. On December 5. 

94. McCarthy, page 340. 

95. Davis's report, which accompanied the resolution, after 
a careful study of our foreign relations, claimed that the Presi- 
dent's action was both "novel and inadmissible" (Speeches and 
Addresses, p. 456). He maintained that "the will of the people, 
expressed in legislative form by the legislative powers, can de- 
clare authoritatively the foreign policy of the nation; to the 
President is committed the diplomatic measures for enforc- 
ing it." 

96. Speeches and Addresses, 472. 

97. The Republican. 

98. Spalding said he had voted not to lay the resolution on 
the table, but was unwilling to lend aid to a direct attack upon 
Lincoln; Dawes jested about the matter; Littlejohn stated that 
he voted to lay on the table the resolution, because Davis had 
moved the previous question without debate. 



CHAPTER IX— 1 863- 1 865 347 

99. Stevens, with Davis's consent, substituted Executive De- 
partment for the President. 

100. 2 Diary, 202. 

loi. On January 6, 1865, Welles wrote (2 Diary, 224) that 
Benjamin F. Butler was in Washington, and, ''allied with Wade, 
Chandler and Davis, he will not only aid, but breed mischief." 
Yet, curiously, Welles wrote on January 18 of the capture of 
Fort Fisher, that (2 Diary, 227) Davis, "who for some cause, 
avoids me, is not satisfied. I do not doubt that he is glad we 
have succeeded, but he does not like it that any credit should 
even remotely come to me." 

102. On January 18, 1865. 

103. Three Decades of Federal Legislation, 233, 234. 

104. On January 19. 

105. On February 27. 

106. He stated that Senator Morrill, of Vermont, was the 
ablest financier in either branch of Congress, whom he had met 
in eight years of service. 

107. In this speech he spoke of the appointment of cadets, 
saying that the Constitution conferred this power upon the 
President but, to stop attacks on the Military and Naval Acad- 
emies, the Administration had made a rule that the members of 
Congress should be called upon for recommendations, and thus 
apportioned the appointments not among the representatives, but 
among the Congressional districts. After Davis had spoken for 
some time, Blaine moved that the House adjourn, as Davis was 
not in "a favorable physical condition." He was unwell again 
a week afterwards and was excused for absence on account of 
illness on February 7 and 8. 

108. Speeches and Addresses, 480. 

io8a. Gustavus Vasa Fox, closely connected with Montgom- 
ery Blair by marriage. 

109. Welles wrote on that day (2 Diary, 236) that "the move 
was sneaking and disingenuous, very much in character with 
Davis, who is unsurpassed for intrigue and has great talents 
for it." Welles added that the English were thinking of abol- 
ishing their admiralty board, and that Schenck was one of 
Davis's clique and had Speaker Colfax's sympathy. 

no. Welles wrote (2 Diary, 237), Davis's renewed attempt 
to put the Navy in commission was decided against him. "He 
and his associates had intrigued skilfully and counted in vain 
on Democratic support" (Speeches and Addresses, 512). 



348 HENRY WINTER DAVIS 

111. When a bill concerning the destruction of the Alabama 
was discussed, on February 28, he moved that Gushing and his 
men have the value of the Albemarle given them, as sinking it 
"was an infinitely more brilliant service than the destruction of 
the Alabama." He objected to the pay department of the Navy 
bill, because it doubled officers and appointed paymasters, with- 
out abolishing navy agents. 

112. McCarthy, page 295. 

113. Vide 2 Welles Diary, 239, February 10, 1865. "Wade 
and Davis are leading spirits in the radical movement and are 
inimical to the Administration" (247), February 22. "Hale 
leads the radicals in the Senate, and Davis in the House. Davis 
has far greater ability than Garfield or Schenck, who gather 
around him. They assume to dictate to the Administration and 
dislike Seward." 

114. On January 16, 1893, Gen. J. D. Cox wrote Rhodes 
(5 U. S. 51) that in February, 1865, he was in Washington, and, 
at Garfield's invitation, dined with Schenck and Davis. "The 
berating of Lincoln by the two last named was something to take 
one's breath away. Garfield laughed at it and at them, as if it 
were a kind of conversational pryotechnics, but I was utterly 
dismayed." Nicolay and Hay (vol. 9, p. 452) in after years 
had not forgotten their bitterness, and spoke of the speech of 
February 21 as one in which Davis "rallied but feebly to the 
support of his discomfited colleagues. His short speech was no- 
ticeable only for its continued accusation of the President as a 
selfish usurper and for his ill-natured flings at his Republican 
colleagues of the House, who had changed their minds or re- 
fused to vote with him, as being influenced by the will of the 
President." With a much more "ill-natured fling" than any of 
which Davis ever used and one without good foundations, they 
continue: "With all his recognized logic and eloquence, Mr. 
Davis was one of those men who possessed the comforting fac- 
ulty of seeing that everybody but himself was arbitrary, selfish 
and subservient," and they maintain that the House was unwill- 
ing to follow the committee or Davis," since neither could ap- 
parently frame a plan to suit itself (sic) for a single week," 
and since it was close to the end of the sesssion. 

115. Speeches and Addresses, 529. 

116. Vide McCarthy, p. 311 ; Hosmer, Outcome of Civil War, 
226. 

117. On March 2. 



CHAPTER IX— 1 863- 1 865 349 

118. On March i, when a tariff bill was debated, he moved 
an amendment on the part of the Committee on Foreign Affairs 
(declared out of order by the Chair), which, he said, secured 
freedom of exports, but which really provided against arbitrary 
prevention of persons or goods leaving the country. On the 
same day he spoke concerning a claim of Stewart Gwynne, an 
employee of the Treasury Department, for printing presses to 
print money in a particular way. 

119. Speeches and Addresses, 538. 

120. Three Decades, 233. 

121. Page 236. 

122 Speeches and Addresses, 551. 

123. George W. Julian, in his political Recollections, p. 246, 
wrote: "Davis was a man of genius. Among the famous men 
in the Thirty-eighth Congress he had no superior as a writer, 
debater and orator. He was a brilliant man, whose devotion 
to his country at this crisis was a passion, while his hostility to 
the President's policy was as sincere as it was intense." 



350 HENRY WINTER DAVIS 

Chapter X. 
LAST DAYS (1865). 

After Davis retired from Congress, he re- 
turned to the practice of law, but the fire 
burned within his breast and he became more 
radical. 

On May 27, he wrote a friend ^ in Washing- 
ton, making, in his letter, a formal declaration 
of his opinion in favor of negro sufifrage as a 
necessity. Although his health had been im- 
paired by his labors in Congress, his spirit 
was as keen as ever and his zeal as ardent for 
a successful reconstruction of the Southern 
States. He felt that the '^future of the nation 
is summed up in the restoration of political 
power to the States lately in rebellion." He 
had no knowledge as to Johnson's policy; but 
felt that the condition of the problem 'Vere 
plain." The President must take the initiative 
and Congress would be likely to recognize the 
State governments, which he should allow 
to be organized. No governments existed in 
"any State which rebelled; none can be organ- 
ized, legally, without the assent of the United 
States, and no steps to secure that assent can be 
taken without his permission;" for he may re- 
fuse to allow any convention to be held. If he 
does so, "things will await the solution of Con- 



CHAPTER X— 1865 351 

gress." ^'If he permit the aggregate white 
population of the South" to vote, he will 
^'place the sceptre in the hands from which we 
have just wrested the sword." He may at- 
tempt ''to discriminate the loyal from the dis- 
loyal" and, then, a "mere handful of the popu- 
lation will remain, wholly incompetent to 
form, or maintain a State government," con- 
stituting in fact "an odious oligarchy." 

Davis saw that the "whole mass of the popu- 
lation of the South has given aid and comfort 
to the rebellion. The Union men of the South 
preferred union and peace to disunion; they 
deplored the outbreak of the war, but they 
never hesitated a moment which side to take. 
If there was to be war, they were for their 
States and against the United States. There 
was no respectable number of Union men, 
willing to aid the United Sates in compelling 
submission to the Constitution, and there is 
none now. It is certainly to this class of the 
white population that we must look for aid, 
in restoring civil government in these States, 
but it is a great delusion to suppose them 
either bold or strong enough to meet and defy 
the united and energetic faction of revolution- 
ists which drove them into rebellion." If the 
Southern whites are "restored to political 
power," they will be interested in repudiating 
the public debt, which was "created to sub- 



352 HENRY WINTER DAVIS 

jugate them to the laws," and in restor- 
ing slavery. To avoid the danger of the 
ex-Confederates returning to power in the 
nation, ''the State governments in the South 
must be placed in hands interested to maintain 
the authority of the United States. This can 
be done, only by recognizing the negro popu- 
lation as an integral part of the people of the 
Southern States, and by refusing to permit any 
State government to be organized, on any 
other basis than universal suffrage and equal- 
ity before the law." He doubted whether a 
"government can be recognized as republican 
in form, which excludes from suffrage and 
equal laws," half or more of the people and 
the negroes form that portion of the popula- 
tion of several States. He was sure that the 
white people, loyal or disloyal, of the ''States 
which rebelled" would not "reorganize gov- 
ernments," on the basis of negro suffrage. He 
found no "State governments and no voters in 
any of the rebel States," but only "States and 
people of those States, both known to the Con- 
stitution of the United States." Negroes, 
Davis continued, "are as integral a part of the 
people of those States as the whites. Both are 
citizens; neither has a right to exclude the 
other; neither can speak in the name of the 
State for the other." The proper solution of 
the problem is to make an appeal to the people 



CHAPTER X— 1865 353 

of the State, black and white together. If 
Johnson is not willing to adopt this method, 
the problem will not be solved rightly and 
then it ^'threatens to generate a barren and 
bitter agitation, sure to result disastrously to 
those who propose the political enfranchise- 
ment of the negroes and to consolida-te the 
union of the enemies of the government in the 
loyal States into an irresistible power." Con- 
gress ought to recognize no government, but 
such as is organized on the basis of universal 
suffrage. Davis felt that the ''shame and 
folly of deserting the negroes" was ''equaled 
by the wisdom of recognizing and protecting 
their power." They were more fit for the 
franchise than the secessionists and no more 
ignorant "than large masses of the white voters 
of the South, or the rabble which is tumbled 
on the wharves of New York and run straight 
to the polls." His conviction was that, "if 
organized and led by men having their confi- 
dence, the negroes will prove as powerful and 
loyal at the polls, as they have already, in the 
face of equal clamor and equal prejudice, 
proved themselves under such leaders on the 
field of battle." 

As early as June 30, Welles wrote in his 
Diary ^ that Wade was mollified, but that 
Davis was "intending to improve the oppor- 
tunity of delivering a Fourth of July oration, 

23 



354 HENRY WINTER DAVIS 

to take ground distinctly antagonistic to the 
Administration on the question of negro suf- 
frage." This oration at Chicago was Davis's 
last great appearance in public.^ The audi- 
ence was the largest gathered in the whole 
country on that day, and ten thousand people 
were estimated to have assembled to hear the 
orator in the great hall of the Sanitary Fair. 
The Mayor of the city presided, and Lyman 
Trumbull headed the list of vice-presidents. 

After the reading of Lincoln's Emancipation 
Proclamation and his last Inaugural Address, 
and of the Declaration of Independence, Davis 
was introduced, and congratulated his hearers 
that that Declaration was now ^'true in right 
and true in fact, from one end of this broad 
land to the other." He reminded the audi- 
ence that in i860 the American Republic rest- 
ed, ''not dreaming of war, with no weapons to 
grasp, with no arms provided, with no army 
organized, with no generals to lead us save 
those at the plow, with no leaders but their 
enemies in power, while a deep and wide- 
spread conspiracy, organized for years, was 
preparing to strike what it fondly hoped was 
the final blow at the integrity of the American 
Republic." When the people realized this 
last fact they arose in arms for the salvation 
of their country. But in the early days of the 
war there was a hesitation to touch ''one sign 



CHAPTER X— 1865 355 

of aristocratic domination which must not be 
interfered with — that was slavery." Gradu- 
ally, however, '^the popular heart caught the 
real spirit of the rebellion," and ^'the nation 
knew that it was struggling, not only to retain 
reluctant States, but to expunge from its insti- 
tutions that which made the Declaration of 
Independence a lie and a vain thing." Davis 
maintained that it was ''from that day" that 
the ''defenders of the cause, inspired by prin- 
ciple, have pursued energetically the contest 
in the face of the hostility of all the nations of 
the world, and loud predictions of failure here, 
till that glorious consummation has been at- 
tained which greets us here today." The vic- 
tory had been obtained at a great cost. "When 
contemplating these sad and yet ever glorious 
battle fields, everywhere seen, who does not 
deplore it with tears, that American blood has 
flowed on both sides^ that it was our brethren 
who were led astray, ruined, scourged to de- 
struction by the Nemesis of History, which 
drives men to work out for themselves the 
punishment of their own errors? Who does 
not remember that they are sons of the same 
forefathers who fought for that very Union 
which they attacked and we defended? Any 
man who does not remember this, lacks one- 
half of the American heart." 
He next summoned his auditors to look back, 



356 HENRY WINTER DAVIS 

''that we may be thankful for, and not proud 
of the things we have accomplished." Events 
had proved that ''secession is not a peaceful 
remedy," that the South can be conquered, 
that the "bond of peace" can not be preserved 
by compromise, that the "negro is a man." He 
had proved his manhood at the point of the 
bayonet, "in the line of battle, alongside of 
armed white men, charging just as deeply into 
the heart of the enemy's ranks as his white 
brethren, vindicating his right to manhood by 
the exercise of the highest prerogative of man 
— fearlessness in the presence of eternity and 
of death which leads him there." 

Another lesson learned was that "State 
rights are responsible to the bayonet," that 
States are immortal, but State governments 
that are organized by men and may be used 
for selfish purposes, perverted to the purposes 
of treason to defy the Union, are, by the laws 
of the United States, not immortal, but amen- 
able to the laws, as men for their acts, and die 
by treason." 

The results of the war were obtained, not by 
great leaders, though we "had, charged with 
the conduct of public affairs, faithful, diligent, 
devoted, and now martyred, servants of the 
Republic. But they did not initiate the move- 
ment which led to this great consummation; 
it sprang from the popular heart, which com- 



CHAPTER X— 1865 357 

pelled them to make war; the impulse came 
from the masses of the people, and they freely 
poured out their treasure and the blood need- 
ed to carry on the war. It was the people 
who anticipated it, their instinct dictated it, 
their treasure supported it, and they demand- 
ed every measure, and sustained, without a 
murmur, every disappointment, and supplied 
money to fill up every waste and every loss." 

He compared the war to the '^struggle of the 
French republic against those who sought its 
overthrow," for ''all Europe was opposed to 
us; they hastened to vest our enemies with the 
rights of war, they threw open their ports for 
their privateers; they prepared in their ma- 
chine shops the materials for breaking our 
blockade; they prepared the arms with which 
our enemies fought us ; and for four years they 
fitted out ships of war and manned them with 
English sailors, to depredate on our com- 
merce." We remember "The Warfare of Or- 
muzd and Ahriman," when we hear Davis 
say: ''They thought our day of doom was 
come, and it is not impossible that their error 
proved our salvation. But we will remember 
that it Vv^as their error and not their merit, and 
will visit its consequences upon them." Think- 
ing that "the great aegis of our protection 
ceased to recover the republics of America," 
Spain seized upon San Domingo and invaded 



358 HENRY WINTER DAVIS 

Peru, while France and England conspired 
against Mexico. Louis Napoleon, ''with the 
purpose of limiting our expansion and 
strengthening his imperial throne by its coun- 
terpart in America" had set up Maximilian 
as emperor of Mexico. ''We dissembled our 
indignation at this grave menace and insult 
with difficulty, but for the present, perhaps, 
not unwisely." Now, however, there is no 
longer need of silence, and we should declare 
that "the introduction of a European prince 
into an American republic, for the purpose of 
founding on its ruins a hereditary throne, is 
an insolent defiance of the declaration of Pres- 
ident Monroe." France must withdraw her 
armies, which, while in Mexico, are a "per- 
petual menace to us." "We wish for no con- 
quests, but we have established freedom here 
and we will have freedom here, and we will 
have freedom from here to Cape Horn." We 
desire to observe all the laws of neutrality, and 
we "are resolved that England shall accept 
and respect her own neutrality laws." 

The cause of the war was slavery. "Govern- 
ment by law we secured by the Constitution; 
personal freedom we sacrificed to an existing 
interest, supposed to be temporary, admitted 
to be wrong, difficult of remedy, but to be rem- 
edied. But the expansion of our territory in- 
spired that interest as it grew in strength: 



CHAPTER X— 1865 359 

first, with a desire for permanence, then with 
a desire for power." The addition of Florida 
and Louisiana caused the supporters of slavery 
to determine to rule. It first asserted itself as 
a power in the Missouri Compromise. ^The 
Compromise of 1850 was the recognition of its 
equality with freedom in disposing of the for- 
tunes and fate of the nation." In the repeal 
of the Missouri Compromise, the war in Kan- 
sas and the Dred Scott decision, it asserted its 
power to rule. To sum up the history of 
opinion on the matter, ''slavery was first 
wrong, then excusable, then defensible, then 
defended by scriptural, historical and politi- 
cal arguments, then advocated and vaunted 
as the highest development of the social organ^^ 
ization." 'The Southern ethnology separated 
the negro from the human race; the Southern 
religion proclaimed the slave trade a mission- 
ary enterprise; the new Southern morals pro- 
claimed the duty of holding the negro, for his 
own benefit, as the highest of moral obliga- 
tions; the new Southern theory deduced the 
highest proofs of the wisdom of God from his 
placingtheblackmaninsubjectionto the white; 
the new Southern history made the chief pur- 
pose of the Constitution the protection of this 
interest; the new Southern political economy 
professed to have found in negro slavery that 
organization of labor for which the Old 



36o HENRY WINTER DAVIS 

World had so long striven in vain; the new 
Southern philosophy added to Jefferson's 
enumeration of the inalienable rights of man 
that of the negro to a master." The South 
feared, lest the ^4ntrusion of new ideas might 
breed doubts," and so there was found '^a ter- 
ritory equal in area to the greatest empire in 
the world, filled with an energetic, brilliant, 
brave and devoted people, educated in the idea 
that the State is supreme and could secede at 
will. * * * That corner-stone, on which 
they sought to raise a new empire, now lies 
crumbled and shattered under the feet of ad- 
vancing freedom." 

The whole South had been involved in the 
rebellion. The so-called Union men there 
''were willing to vote that peace should con- 
tinue, and with it the Union, but, if it were to 
be broken, then they would not fight against 
their brethren at home for the maintenance of 
the Union. They preferred peace at home 
and war with the United States, to war at 
home and peace with the United States." 
Even since the collapse of the Confederacy, 
the Southerners might be divided into "those 
Vv'ho acquiesce readily and those who acqui- 
esce only under coercion." Andrew Johnson 
had declared himself, and Davis openly op- 
posed him. "To that people our rulers are 
now proposing to extend the privilege of gov- 



CHAPTER X— 1865 361 

erning themselves and us." It was well to 
make haste slowly. Virginia's Legislature 
had shown that there are ''precautions abso- 
lutely necessary." Davis favored the execu- 
tion of Jefferson Davis, but felt that ''the mere 
hanging of men has no power to prevent such 
a rebellion as this, where men have staked 
hundreds of thousands of lives on the issue and 
died, glorying in their cause. By hanging 
them, you would be only multiplying the num- 
ber of martyrs, without materially diminish- 
ing that of criminals." But they should be 
"stamped with the foul brand of treason, not 
allowed to glory over their struggle against 
the nation, to remain the heroes of the South, 
as they are at this day." England and France 
preach moderation to us, but they do not show 
it to overthrown enemies. As "we are today 
a nation, in spite of their advice, their enmity 
and their efforts, silence would better become 
them." 

Davis believed that "the immense region" of 
the South could not be governed by military 
power, for such government is "inconsistent, 
not only with the principles of our institutions, 
but with the permanence and integrity of the 
American Government." When we organize 
the civil governments in the subjugated States 
"we must recognize not only personal free- 
dom, but the principles of self-government — 



362 HENRY WINTER DAVIS 

the right of the people to rule." Davis found 
no white population of the South ''who will 
draw the sword for us and will maintain our 
rights, where they are threatened, and are 
powerful enough to maintain the authority of 
the State government at home." He found 
such men in the negroes, and he proposed to 
give them the franchise, because their rights, 
and even more, ''our safety," were at stake. 
"It is a question of power, not of right, a ques- 
tion of salvation, not of morals. The alterna- 
tives are before us of a republican, friendly 
government, or a hostile oligarchy in the 
South." He held that "when negroes become 
free, they become a part of the nation, and to 
ostracise them is to sanction a principle fatal 
to American free government." To the ob- 
jection that the negroes are not intelligent 
enough to vote, Davis replied that they know 
"a gray uniform from a blue one. They know 
a Yankee from their masters. They have 
fought well under Yankee leadership." He 
told the Chicagoans that: "I have seen about 
as much of negroes as any of you, have lived as 
near them, and I suppose have as much preju- 
dice toward them as any of you ; but to talk of 
this, after we have had to call them to our aid 
in putting down the rebellion, is either drivel- 
ing folly or infinite meanness." In Maryland 
emancipation was carried, "by going to the 



CHAPTER X— 1865 363 

poor white men in the Southern portion of the 
State and showing them that the negro could 
relieve them from military service. They did 
not stop to discuss his right to political privi- 
leges then. If he is their and your equal on 
the battle field, in the service of the country, 
he is and should be at the ballot box." 

Davis refused to believe that Johnson was 
opposed to negro suffrage. ''He may have de- 
sired to give" the Southern whites ''a golden 
opportunity" of "silencing every doubt as to 
their loyalty." Like Davis, Johnson knew 
that the "only authority that can recognize 
State governments at the South is the Con- 
gress," and to that "august assembly" Davis 
turned and appealed to it, "not to take any 
man's declaration as to the safety of trusting 
the whole mass of the rebels of the South with 
the control of the Southern States," which pol- 
icy might "clog and even arrest the wheels of 
government." He was "very little of a philan- 
thropist," but he knew that the negro's vote 
was necessary for carrying on the Govern- 
ment, and that if the constitutions of the 
Southern States did "not give the mass of the 
negroes the right of voting on equal terms with 
the loyal white men," then "republican prin- 
ciples" required that no person from those 
States should be admitted to Congress. Con- 
gress should pass a constitutional amendment, 



364 HENRY WINTER DAVIS 

securing the suffrage to the negroes, and sub- 
mit it to the States, for ''we need the votes of 
all the colored people. It is numbers, not in- 
telligence, that count at the ballot box; it is 
right intention and not philosophic judgment 
that casts the vote." If such an amendment 
be passed, ''all the principles of the Declara- 
tion of Independence will be executed; this 
Government will rest on the right of individ- 
ual liberty and the right of every man to bear 
a share in the government of the country, 
whose laws he obeys and whose bayonet, in the 
hour of danger, he bears." 

Convinced in the rightfulness of granting 
suffrage to the negro, he wrote the Nation 
upon that subject, and his letter was printed 
on November 30.^ In editorial comment, the 
letter is spoken of as presenting, "in a forcible 
shape, nearly all that can be said in favor of 
negro suffrage at the South. To the temper 
of portions of the letter, we might offer several 
objections, though none of them would affect 
the weight of the argument. But when he 
calls for negro suffrage, and in the same 
breath finds fault with the President for not 
withdrawing the troops from the South, we 
feel bound to say that his zeal outruns his dis- 
cretion. The bestowal of the franchise, after 
the close of the war, without military protec- 
tion, would, in our opinion, have been of about 



CHAPTER X— 1865 365 

as much use to the negroes as rations of pate 
de foie gras." This is scarcely a fair com- 
ment, since Davis's criticism of the President's 
military policy was largely made because he 
feared that the military occupation of the 
South would become permanent, and because, 
having so great power, the President had not 
used it for the permanent safeguarding of the 
Republic, by granting negroes the suffrage. 
Davis's letter was called forth by the result of 
the election in Connecticut, in which State a 
decisive majority had just refused to permit 
the negro to vote. Davis felt that this election 
revealed the fact that "there is an unreliable 
minority in our ranks, willing to unite with 
the enemies of the country," but that the im- 
portance of the election was lessened since, "in 
Connecticut," "no practical importance at- 
taches to the negro vote and the old prejudice 
was free to assert its power." Davis was as 
strongly convinced as ever that, in the South- 
ern States, the "negro population is a controll- 
ing power, on which the United States can 
rely there, in the event of a renewed rebellion. 
It is the only body of people who can give the 
white minority of loyal men a voice in the na- 
tion and prevent them from being over- 
whelmed and ostracised by the hostile major- 
ity. It is the only body from which a Re- 
publican vote can be expected in any of those 



366 HENRY WINTER DAVIS 

States; for the mass of whites, loyal as well as 
disloyal, hate and villify us, while the negroes 
know that liberty is our gift." Davis was 
alarmed because ^^the tone of the Southern 
press — now merely muttering between bayo- 
nets — is that of execration against the Repub- 
licans." With others who had voted for 
Johnson, Davis ''stood confounded and divid- 
ed" by his policy. The only choices other 
than negro suffrage were ''an oligarchy of 
loyal whites, or an aristocracy of hostile 
whites. The one is loyal, but not republican ; 
the other is neither loyal or republican." The 
former. President Lincoln organized in Vir- 
ginia and Louisiana; the latter President 
Johnson is "organizing under his proclama- 
tion." There was danger that results of the 
war should be lost, and "in all the South the 
only mass of the population interested and 
able to prevent this danger is the negroes." 
Johnson's words had been inconsistent. "His 
policy is that of our enemies," and he had left 
the Southern negroes "to the will of the mas- 
ters." He "has as much power to admit as to 
exclude voters," and, while his whole "con- 
duct was a usurpation, it was no more usurpa- 
tion to direct his agents to receive than to re- 
fuse negro votes." He had not followed the 
ante-bellum constitutions in all respects. "The 
suggestion that the constitutions survive the 



CHAPTER X— 1865 367 

governments is at once absurd and dangerous. 
The governments ceased to exist, because they 
disowned their subordination to the United 
States in point of law. Our arms expelled 
them as usurpations in point of fact. The con- 
stitutions were constitutions of those govern- 
ments and of nothing else. When the rebel- 
lion usurped power in the States, the State 
governments ceased to exist, the constitutions 
became dead forms; the line of official trans- 
mission of powers was broken, there ceased to 
be any person designated to renew the func- 
tions of government, and they could never be 
renewed, till the people constituted anew the 
government, or Congress, in executing its 
guarantee, directed such governments to be 
constituted. For a government is certain men 
charged with certain powers. A constitution 
of government is the law creating the powers 
and designating the men to execute them; and, 
without the men, the government and the con- 
stitution are alike nonentities." 

Davis's consistency was exact and his logic 
relentless, if you granted him his premises. 
He admitted that ^^nothing is more true than 
that the question of suffrage belongs to the 
States, but it is equally true that Congress is 
the exclusive judge of the compatibility of 
their solution of it with republican principles. 
The States have the right to prescribe who 



368 HENRY WINTER DAVIS 

shall vote, but they have no right so to exer- 
cise it as to create an oligarchy or an aristoc- 
racy, instead of a republican form of govern- 
ment; and it is the right and duty of Congress 
to judge this question; and its judgment is 
final and conclusive on all departments of the 
Government. This judgment it is the duty of 
the President to execute; over it, he has no 
power. It is the duty of guaranteeing repub- 
lican government in the States which gives 
Congress this high jurisdiction ; and the right 
of determining who are the Representatives 
and Senators carries with it the exclusive right 
of determining which is the constitutional — 
that is, the republican government of a State — 
for, otherwise, it might find itself compelled 
to admit Representatives and Senators of the 
States whose governments are not republican 
in form or substance, in its opinion." 

Davis's reasoning was never more cogent, 
nor his reasoning more acute than in this pa- 
per. He maintained that ''republican prin- 
ciples and national interests alike forbid the 
acceptance of the President's plan." "Repub- 
lican government, in the American sense, is 
the government by the mass of the people 
through their representatives. Whenever, 
therefore, the mass of the citizens, or any great 
proportion of them, is excluded from political 
power, the government ceases to be republi- 



CHAPTER X— 1865 369 

can." In Connecticut the exclusion of ne- 
groes from voting ''does not touch the republi- 
canism of her government, for the persons ex- 
cluded form no material or appreciable por- 
tion of her citizens," but in South Carolina 
the negro citizens form two-thirds of the 
whole body." ''To deny them a vote" is not 
merely to establish an aristocracy of race, but 
also an oligarchy. "The Constitution makes 
no distinction of color. Its only distinction 
is that between free and slave inhabitants." 

Free negroes are citizens, and, indeed, voted 
in North Carolina and in Maryland at the 
time of the adoption of the Federal Constitu- 
tion. The President's "mushroom govern- 
ments" ought to be rejected, for "his intermed- 
dling is wholly illegal." "What has been done 
is a vain form." Military rule should not be 
prolonged; for, if continued long, "the idea 
of government by law will die out from the 
land." "Discarding, therefore, the horrible 
thought of military government," Congress 
can "paralyze the dangerous vote" by a consti- 
tutional amendment, apportioning represen- 
tation according to the number of persons al- 
lowed to vote. This policy, however, would 
leave the "States in the hands of the disaffect- 
ed," and should be rejected, as should that of 
placing them in the hands of the loyal white 
minority. A reorganization of these States on 

24 



370 HENRY WINTER DAVIS 

the ^^basis of universal suffrage," secured 
''against the mutations of political life" by the 
adoption of a constitutional amendment, is 
necessary to support the prohibition of slavery. 
''They who propose to postpone negro suf- 
frage till the negro is educated, need political 
education more than the negro." Davis would 
neither deprive Southern leaders of citizen- 
ship, nor confiscate their lands, but would 
"balance the power of the disaffected aristoc- 
racy by the resident mass of loyal negroes, 
armed with the ballot and bayonet." Johnson 
was "experimenting now on nothing but the 
patience of the Republicans and the support 
of the Democrats." If he should obtain a 
majority in Congress, "a counter revolution is 
effected, which postpones the fruits of war for 
a generation." 

The Republicans then possessed two-thirds 
of both houses of Congress, so that they could 
do what they thought right. "If the Presi- 
dent deserts those who elected him for the 
votes and policy of their opponents, we must 
break the coalition at any cost." Davis felt 
that it was insane to dream that the South 
would of "itself ever give either suffrage or 
equality before the law, and now is our only 
time to compel it." 

His religious feeling caused him thus sol- 
emnly to close his last public utterance: "If 



CHAPTER X— 186? 371 

men say God works slowly, yet will not let a 
good cause fail, they had better enlighten 
their piety by a glance at his ways in history, 
and reflect that he visits wasted opportunities, 
not less than wickedness, with ruin. I trust 
we may not be monuments of that wrath." 

During the second week of the first session 
of the Thirty-ninth Congress Davis visited 
Washington, and when he entered the hall of 
the House of Representatives he received a 
^'general, spontaneous and cordial" greeting 
from gentlemen on both sides of the House, 
so that he was sensibly touched. ^'The crowd 
that gathered about him was so great that the 
party was obliged to retire to one of the larger 
ante-rooms, for fear of interrupting the public 
business." ^ 

Society in Baltimore had been divided into 
two hostile camps by the war. The Union 
people held assemblies, which Mr. and Mrs. 
Davis attended. The Union men formed the 
Union Club, which stood on Charles street, 
where the Masonic Temple now stands, about 
two blocks from Davis's residence. In a little 
room there Davis was wont to meet Joseph M. 
Cushing, George C. Maund, Archibald Stir- 
ling, Jr., Hugh Lennox Bond, James T. Par- 
tridge and John T. Graham, and discuss 
Maryland politics with them. All of the 
party smoked, except Davis and Graham, who 



372 HENRY WINTER DAVIS 

frequently left the room before the rest to 
avoid the smoke-laden atmosphere. Graham 
often called for Davis, when such a conference 
was arranged, and did so on a cold day in the 
Christmas season of 1865. Davis came out of 
his house, as was frequently the case, without 
an overcoat. Graham remonstrated with him 
on his recklessness, but Davis made light of 
the matter. Just before reaching the Club, 
however, he shivered and said to Graham: ''It 
is cold." He stayed a while at the conference 
and returned to his house for the last time. 

The cold which he caught developed into 
pneumonia and, after a very short illness, on 
December 31 he died at his home on the west 
side of St. Paul street, above Saratoga street. 
Until the morning of the day preceding his 
death, his recovery was expected, but then un- 
favorable symptoms appeared, and when his 
wife spoke to him on that evening of a brief 
visit they had planned to Mrs. S. F. Du Pont, 
he replied, in the last words he ever uttered : 
''It shows the folly of making plans even for a 
day." ^ He continued to fail rapidly in 
strength and passed away about two o'clock on 
the next afternoon, so "quietly that no one 
knew the moment of his departure." To this 
day the surpassing beauty ^ of his face, with its 
lofty brow, finely chiseled nose and sweeping 



CHAPTER X— 1865 373 

moustache, lingers in the memory of those 
who saw his body as it lay awaiting burial. 

He was cut off in the prime of life, before 
men knew he was ill, and the city was awed 
by the suddenness of his end. Even the Sun 
paper, which had fought him bitterly while 
alive, now he was dead, could do naught but 
praise him, diminishing that praise, in truth, 
as much as it could, calling him a ^'politician 
of considerable ability and aspirations," a man 
of ''fine forensic talents," one who "rather 
prided himself on being a progressive in poli- 
tics and seemed disposed to startle at times by 
his enunciations. His extreme radicalism in 
the end doubtless worked to his disadvantage 
among his political associates." 

At eleven o'clock on New Year's Day the 
rooms of the Union Club were filled with 
Davis's friends, manifesting the depths of their 
feelings. Governor Thomas Swann was made 
president of the meeting,^ and said that, asso- 
ciated with Davis "for many years in the pub- 
lic affairs of the State of Maryland, no one, 
perhaps, had a better opportunity than myself 
of judging of his commanding talents, indom- 
itable energy and industry, and his many pri- 
vate virtues. An able debater, the ablest, per- 
haps, in the country; a brilliant orator, firm 
and decided in all his impulses, spotless in the 
relations of private life, few^ of our public men 



374 HENRY WINTER DAVIS 

in the country have built up a greater reputa- 
tion for cultivated genius, or attached to him 
more devoted friends among those with whom 
he co-operated in his political career. For 
some years past it has been my misfortune to 
dififer with him upon questions of national and 
State politics, under circumstances which 
might have been supposed to have led to 
alienation and unkind feeling. This I am 
happy to have it in my power to correct. But 
the past is forgotten in the severity and sud- 
denness of the blow which has brought us here 
today. There are occasions when the petty 
differences of this life should be forgotten. It 
is in the sad occurrence of events like the pres- 
ent that the worthlessness of all worldly pur- 
suits is so keenly brought to our view." 

All that day and until late in the evening 
the body lay in state at his residence, and the 
newspapers recorded that ''many colored peo- 
ple were among those who viewed the re- 
mains" of him who had fought for them so 
valiantly. The funeral services took place in 
St. Paul's Protestant Episcopal Church in the 
afternoon of the next day, and were conducted 
by Rev. Dr. Hobart, the rector of Grace 
Church. Afterwards Davis's body was in- 
terred in the family vault of his father-in-law 
in St. Paul's graveyard. The Mayor and City 
Council attended the funeral services in a 



CHAPTER X— 1865 375 

body, as did Chief Justice Chase, Mr. Justice 
Davis, his cousin, Mr. Justice Swayne, Gen. 
H. W. Halleck, Secretary Edwin M. Stanton, 
Charles Sumner, Governor Swann, and Lieu- 
tenant-Governor C. C. Cox. The courts ad- 
journed for the day and a meeting of the mem- 
bers of the bar was held in the Superior Court 
room.^*^ The presiding officer, Judge R. N. 
Martin, spoke of Davis as an ^'accomplished, 
skillful and able lawyer, with intellectual 
power as an advocate and debater that gave 
him a conspicuous place among the most bril- 
liant of our forensic and party orators," and 
'*as possessing all those qualifications which 
belong to a cultivated and irreproachable gen- 
tleman." Resolutions were adopted, ^^ in mov- 
ing which William Schley spoke of Davis as 
''deeply grounded in the elements of law" and 
as having "great ability in conducting causes." 
"If he had given his powerful mind, in a large 
degree," to law, he would have been among 
the "foremost lawyers; but nature designed 
him for a statesman." In private life he was 
"a refined and courteous gentleman of rare 
acquirements and highly cultivated taste, gen- 
ial and social in disposition. He was not a 
man to abandon his convictions," but was 
"stern and uncompromising and fearless in 
the discharge of what he considered his du- 
ties." 



376 HENRY WINTER DAVIS 

J. Morrison Harris, who had served in Con- 
gress with Davis for six years, seconded the 
resolutions concerning that "great man," in 
whom "regular habits and physical vigor 
would have led men to look for long life." 
His colle-ague thus bore testimony to Davis: 
"So unquestionable was his ability, so large his 
information, so striking his views, so evident 
his earnest and clear convictions, and so 
irresistible the power of his eloquence that, 
however men differed with or censured him, 
he never rose to address the House that its 
members did not throng around him and, 
friend and foe alike, accord to him frank and 
liberal praise. In all his relations to the House 
he occupied high position, and both in the 
committee room and on the floor he made him- 
self felt." His enemies could accuse him of 
nothing worse than erroneous opinions. "His 
more important speeches were the products 
of a full mind, and its stores of acquisition 
were fused with a freshness of handling that 
was always novel and applied with an earnest 
vigor that commanded willing audience, even 
when it failed to enforce conviction. His ar- 
guments were close, compact and true, reason- 
ing strictly. He never stopped short of log- 
ical sequences, bold and self-poised. He did 
not pause to estimate probable censure, or hold 
back from fear of consequences. He appeared 



CHAPTER X— 1865 377 

to have an intuitive and unfaltering faith in 
his own convictions, and he wrought courage- 
ously for their realization. His fluency was 
wonderful, and his style of speaking carried 
his hearers with him by the very rush and im- 
petus of the vigorous earnestness that marked 
it. He was undoubtedly an orator of rare 
ability, and those skillful to judge assigned 
him a foremost rank among the eloquent 
speakers of the country." 

^'Early winning distinction, his cogent mode 
of arguing his causes and the breadth and com- 
prehensiveness of his arguments have won him 
unstinted praise in all the courts in which he 
practiced." In the Supreme Court ''he had 
gained the position of a counsellor of com- 
manding abilities." He possessed the "firm 
faith of a Christian man." 'Troud and self- 
contained in the matters that pressed upon him 
sharply in the rough conflicts of public life, I 
know," said Mr. Harris, "that he was genial, 
vivacious and singularly agreeable in his pri- 
vate intercourse." His "extensive reading, 
large observation, literary taste, and wonder- 
ful memory made him a most attractive and 
pleasant companion, and, while his earnest na- 
ture attached his friends most strongly to him, 
they felt that differences of opinion did not 
beget in him any personal littlenesses, and that 



378 HENRY WINTER DAVIS 

he was to be fully and frankly relied upon in 
all the professions of his friendships." 

The eloquent R. Stockett Matthews fol- 
lowed and bore witness to the fact that Davis's 
^'whole heart was aglow with a love of liber- 
ty." The law had just^'lost one of its ablest and 
most ingenious interpreters, in whom the rar- 
est gifts of nature were united to ripe scholar- 
ship and copious and accurate legal learning. 
He brought to the discharge of the trusts com- 
mitted to his management a profound appre- 
ciation of the responsibilities of an advocate. 
In small, as in great cases, he was painstaking 
and exact, never trusting to the chances of the 
trial table interests which could be best pro- 
moted by faithful study and preparation. No 
question was so complicated as to baffle his 
powers of subtle analysis, and the most ab- 
struse principles were simplified by the force 
of his clear logic. He was a rapid, keen and 
exhaustive thinker, not less eminent for the 
quickness of his perceptions than for the co- 
pious logic with which he illustrated every 
subject upon which his mind was brought to 
bear. Although it was easy at all times to 
recognize in his diction and in his varied style 
the cultivation of a scholar of widely diversi- 
fied acquirements, yet his arguments in the 
courts were sui generis — exhibitions of process- 
es of pure reasoning." They were ''terse, vig- 



CHAPTER X— 1865 379 

orous, compact and lucid, and their unity was 
seldom marred by the interpolation of decided 
cases." For some years before his death he 
had seldom appeared in the courts. A "most 
self-reliant and self-poised man," when Davis 
was "once satisfied that a certain course was to 
be pursued, he walked through it to the end . 
and never asked himself how many or how few 
would follow him. Dreading alone the con- 
demnation of his own conscience, he neither 
omitted to do what it dictated, nor dreaded the 
disapprobation of others. He felt that right 
and truth and justice ought to be popular, and 
he was their champion at all times against all 
odds, and fearless of all consequences. He 
could dare to do what most men would shrink 
from; he could dare to leave undone a thou- 
sand things which men equally honest, but 
with coarser natures, are in the habit of think- 
ing necessary to the success of a public man." 

Archibald Stirling, Jr., showing signs of 
his great grief in his speech, ^^ added that 
Davis, "while he was in many respects a proud 
man and a man of quick temper," was "desti- 
tute of every species of personal meanness and 
of every species of personal resentment. He 
united the utmost rapidity of thought, the ut- 
most facility of acquiring information, with a 
habit of most patient investigation." A "cul- 
tivated Christian gentleman," he was reserved 



38o HENRY WINTER DAVIS 

in religious matters, but had a ^'firm and strong 
faith." 

Outside of Baltimore, came other testimo- 
nies to his power. Greeley wrote that the 
House of Representatives had listened to him 
as it listens to few, and that he had ^'keen in- 
vective, salient intellect, with power of con- 
tinuous thought." By nature self-reliant, he 
seldom permitted the opinions of others, even 
of his own friends, to influence his own resolu- 
tions. Hence he grew to be thought as a poli- 
tician self-willed, and, by those who make ex- 
pediency their established doctrine, to be de- 
nounced as impracticable. Little cared he. 
His ^'fidelity to ideas was one of his most ad- 
mirable traits." 

Charles Sumner wrote a lofty eulogy 
upon Davis, ^^ for he felt that Davis's 
death ^^at this moment is a national calamity. 
His rare powers were in their perfect prime 
and he had dedicated all to his country. At 
this crisis, when the best statesmanship, in- 
spired by the best courage, is much needed, it 
is hard to part with him. Nature had done 
much for this remarkable man. Elegant in 
person, elastic in step and winning in manner, 
he arrested the attention of all who saw him, 
and when he spoke, the first impressions were 
confirmed. He was rapid and direct. He 
went straight to the point. He abounded in 



CHAPTER X— 1865 381 

ideas. Language lent her charms. Among 
the living orators of the country he had few 
peers. Professional studies and political ex- 
perience added to his powers. Had he lived 
I know not what height he might have 
reached. Never before had he been so com- 
pletely master of himself, and never before 
did he see so clear and glorious a line of duty. 
As the occasion was vast, so I doubt not would 
have been his efforts. He looked to nothing 
else than the complete enfranchisement of his 
country and the redemption of all the prom- 
ises of our fathers in the Declaration of Inde- 
pendence." In his recent letter to the Nation, 
he had ^^touched this question to the quick," 
and was right in his contention. '^Alas! that 
he is not here to help in the battle now at hand ! 
With what force and beauty, with what inten- 
sity and eloquence he would have illustrated 
the congenial theme." Sumner compared him 
with Charles James Fox. Davis was a '^zeal- 
ous man and, like all zealous men, when great 
questions are in issue, sometimes gave offence. 
It is hard to strike strong blows without leav- 
ing bruises. It is hard to restrain the rage of 
a generous indignation so that it will not seem 
severe. There are times when Justice is se- 
verity. There were things he could not bear. 
His warm nature glowed at the thought of 
wrong or usurpation; nor could he check tlie 



382 HENRY WINTER DAVIS 

currents of his soul, even if they threatened to 
dash against persons powerful in place or in- 
fluence. A President like Lincoln was not 
above his honest, fearless criticism." 

To Davis's loyalty to the Union, Sumner 
gave ample praise: ^'His country owes ^riuch 
to him. Living in a State which panted with 
the throes of rebellion and surrounded by a 
disloyal population, he was, from the begin- 
ning, austere in patriotism. He made no com- 
promises. He stood by the flag at all hazards, 
as the combat deepened; he was among the 
foremost to see that slavery was the great rebel. 
Against slavery he struck. He had the inex- 
pressible satisfaction to witness the first stages 
of its overthrow, and he was girding himself 
for the final battle with the transcendent of- 
fender under the new form it assumed. In 
striking against slavery, he set an example to 
his fellow-citizens everywhere. If he, whose 
home was in a slave State and whose friends 
were slave-masters, could strike such blows, it 
was hard to see how citizens of other places, 
where slavery did not prevail, could hesitate." 

Maryland ^Vill cherish his memory with 
especial reverence. Among all the sons she 
has given to the country there is none who can 
be named before him. Hereafter, when Mary- 
land is fully redeemed and a happy people re- 
joices in all the manifold blessings secured, 



CHAPTER X— i86q 383 

then will hearts throb and eyes glisten at the 
mention of this noble name. Better for his 
memory than any triumph of genius at the bar 
will be his devoted championship of human 
freedom. Maryland may not now be ready 
to do fit honor to her departed son, but the 
time cannot be long postponed. Her advance 
in civilization may well be measured by sym- 
pathy with his name." The eulogy closed by 
quoting ''these artless, feeling words," from a 
''journal published by colored persons in Bal- 
timore." "He was true to his country and a 
true friend to the colored people, never fal- 
tering in the time of need. In Congress he 
fought as a hero for our people, and at home 
he labored assiduously for the bondman and 
espoused the cause of liberty, justice and truth 
up to the time of his death." His memory 
"should live in every colored American's heart 
for ages to come. At his own peril, he "stood 
invincible for his country, knew no flag but 
the flag of free America, even when his nearest 
friend would impeach him for his acts and al- 
most threaten his life." ^^ 

An estimate less complimentary was made 
by Gideon Welles, who wrote in his diary, in 
his usual bitter manner, on January i, 1866, 
that Davis : "a conspicuous member of the last 
Congress and a Maryland politician of noto- 
riety, died on Saturday. He was eloquent, pos- 



384 HENRY WINTER DAVIS 

sessed genius, had acquirements, was eccentric, 
ambitious, unreliable, and greatly given to in- 
trigue. In politics he was a centralist, regard- 
less of constitutional limitations. I do not con- 
sider his death a great public loss. He was 
restless and active, but not useful. Still, there 
will be a class of extreme radicals who will de- 
plore his death as a calamity and eulogize his 
memory." ^^ 

From Washington, on January 3, i856, 
Chief Justice Chase wrote thus to Mrs. Davis : 

^'I would not intrude yesterday on your 
sacred grief, even by word of sympathy, but 
cannot forbear expressing in a few lines my 
profound sense of the great loss sustained by 
Maryland and the whole country through the 
terrible bereavement which has been permit- 
ted to fall on you. 

''I always wanted to know a great deal more 
of Mr. Davis, personally, than I did; but I 
knew enough to make my admiration of his 
remarkable qualities of mind and heart equal 
to that felt by those whose relations were more 
intimate. His brilliant eloquence, his rare 
attainments, his noble manners and, above all, 
his clear perception of the right and the fear- 
less courage with which he devoted himself to 
its vindication and establishment, drew to him 
irresistibly something besides and far better 



CHAPTER X— 1865 385 

than the applause of men, their profound re- 
spect and their affectionate devotion. 

^'His greatest work is his noblest monument. 
To him especially belongs the great honor of 
breaking the bonds of every slave in his native 
State. The Free Commonwealth of Mary- 
land, better than any star-pointing pyramid, 
will commemorate his genius and his labors. 

'^You cannot think much of these things now, 
and yet his public acts and the greatest public 
act of his life must be to you hereafter a grate- 
ful retrospect. At this moment the anguish 
of separation, the great loss to yourself and to 
your dear children, the void in your home, 
must engross all your thoughts and feelings. 
If you think of other things at all, you are in- 
consolable under the thought which oppresses 
me and multitudes, how can he be spared when 
there is so much to be done which no other 
man can do so bravely and so well? God's 
grace and the gentle healings of time can only 
bring relief. May God's grace be with you, 
dear Madam, and may you at last see even in 
this sorest of afflictions the manifestation of a 
Father's love. 

^With deep sympathy and sincere respect, 
"Your friend, 

"S. P. Chase.^^ 

Congress did Davis an unexampled and as 
yet unparalleled honor. On Washington's 

26 



386 HENRY WINTER DAVIS 

Birthday both Houses adjourned to hear a 
memorial oration ^^ delivered by John A. Cres- 
well, a Senator from Maryland, on Davis, 
though he died a private citizen/^ Reverdy 
Johnson, the State's other Senator, sat on 
Creswell's right, and the galleries were filled 
with attentive listeners/^ 

In introducing Creswell, the Speaker, 
Schuyler Colfax, referred to Davis as one who 
was ''inflexibly hostile to oppression, whether 
of slaves on American soil, or of republicans 
struggling in Mexico against monarchical in- 
vasion, faithful always to principle and lib- 
erty, championing always the cause of the 
downtrodden, fearless as he was eloquent in 
his avowals. He was mourned throughout a 
continent; and from the Patapsco to the Gulf 
the blessings of those who had been ready to 
perish followed him to his tomb." ^^ Creswell 
began by referring in terms of high praise to 
Washington and Lincoln, and then sketched 
Davis's career. In his estimate of his friend 
he first dwelt upon his oratory, remarking that 
''he always held his hearers in rapt attention 
until he closed, and then they lingered about, 
to discuss with one another what they had 
heard. I have seen a promiscuous assembly, 
made up of friends and opponents, remain ex- 
posed to a beating rain for two hours, rather 
than forego hearing him. His stump ef]forts 



CHAPTER X— 1865 387 

never fell below his high standard. He never 
condescended to a mere attempt to amuse. He 
always spoke to instruct, to convince, and to 
persuade through the higher and better ave- 
nues to favor." ^ He never wrote out his 
speeches, yet ''his style was perspicuous, ener- 
getic, concise and, withal, highly elegant. He 
never loaded his sentences with meretricious 
finery or high-sounding supernumerary words. 
Of humor, he had none; but his wit and sar- 
casm at times would glitter like the brandished 
scimiter of Saladin, and, descending, would 
cut as keenly. The pathetic he never attempt- 
ed; but, when angered by a malicious assault, 
his invective was consuming and his epithets 
would wound like pellets of lead." 

Turning to consider the character of the 
man, Creswell found his ''most striking char- 
acteristics" to be "his devotion to principle 
and his indomitable courage. There never 
was a moment when he could be truthfully 
charged with trimming or insincerity." His 
views were always clearly avowed and fear- 
lessly maintained.^^ "Some have said he was 
hard and dictatorial. They had seen him 
only when a high resolve fired his breast and 
when the gleam of battle had lighted his coun- 
tenance. His friends saw deeper and knew 
♦that beneath the exterior he assumed in his 
struggles with the world there beat a heart as 



388 HENRY WINTER DAVIS 

pure and unsullied, as confiding and as gentle 
as ever sanctified the domestic circle or made 
loved ones happy." ^ 

Several of those who knew Davis, in the 
years following his death paid noteworthy 
tributes to him. John W. Forney ^ wrote that 
Davis ^'passed away in the flush and prime of 
his usefulness : the Rupert of debate, the Ri- 
enzi of the people, the model of manly beauty 
— yet he faded out at the moment when he 
was filling the hearts and eyes of men." 

James G. Blaine had long admired Davis, 
and when Theodore Tilton, in the Independ- 
ent, said that Davis's mantle had fallen on 
Roscoe Conkling, Blaine made use of this 
comparison in his attack upon Conkling on 
the floor of Congress, on April 30, 1866:^^ 
^'The resemblance is great. It is striking. 
Hyperion to a satyr. Thersites to Hercules, 
mud to marble, a dunghill to a diamond, a 
singed cat to a Bengal tiger, a whining puppy 
to a roaring lion. Shade of the mighty Davis ! 
forgive the almost profanation of that jocose 
satire." Conkling, quite naturally, never for- 
gave Blaine, whose admiration for Davis was 
further expressed three years later,^^ witness- 
ing to ''the infinitely varying and always fresh- 
ly developing grandeur of Davis's character. 
I was only yesterday glancing over his 



CHAPTER X— 186? 389 

speeches and I came across this, which I well 
remember when it fell from his lips." 

^'For untimely agitators and premature re- 
formers, I have little sympathy. They are 
cocks that crow at midnight, heralding no 
dawn and only disturbing peaceful and needed 
rest by unseemly and unseasonable clamor." 

*T do not quote this," Blaine continued, ^'as 
any striking exhibition of eloquence, or ex- 
cellence of speech, but only of the wonderful 
readiness and facility of expression and illus- 
tration which came to his lips as with inspired 
force. I remember the startling significance 
of this particular phrase, as it fell on my ear. 
It arrested the attention of the entire House." 

^^Davis was essentially a many-sided man. 
His culture seemed to embrace the whole do- 
main of knowledge. He was a profoundly 
learned lawyer. He was a most clear-headed 
and admirable statesman. He was a man of 
letters. He was a matchless orator. He was 
a true and genial Christian, and yet a man of 
the world." 

Fifteen years afterwards, while writing his 
Twenty Years in Congress, Blaine had lost 
none of his long-felt admiration for Davis, 
and wrote of him:^ ''As a debater in the 
House, Mr. Davis may be cited as an ex- 
emplar. He had no boastful reliance upon 
intuition or inspiration, or the spur of the 



390 HENRY WINTER DAVIS 

moment, though no man excelled him in ex- 
tempore speech. He made elaborate prepa- 
ration by the study of all public questions, and 
spoke from a full mind, with complete com- 
mand of premise and conclusion. In all that 
pertained to the graces of oratory, he was un- 
rivalled. He died at 48. Had he been 
blessed with length of days, the friends who 
best knew his ability and his ambition believed 
that he would have left the most brilliant 
name in the parliamentary annals of Ameri- 
ca." In another part of the work Blaine spoke 
of Davis's highly cultivated ''mind" and of his 
''style of writing, which, in political contro- 
versy, has rarely been surpassed, a style at 
once severe, effective and popular." ^^ 

John Sherman wrote his Recollections thir- 
ty years after Davis's death, and thus spoke of 
him^ as "the most accomplished orator in the 
House while he was a member. Well edu- 
cated in college, well trained as a lawyer, an 
accomplished writer and eloquent speaker, yet 
he was a poor parliamentarian, a careless 
member of committee, and utterly unfit to 
conduct an appropriation or tariff bill in the 
House. He was impatient of details, queru- 
lous when questioned or interrupted, but in 
social life and in intercourse with his fellow- 
members, he was genial, kind and courteous. 
On one occasion, when I was called home, I 



CHAPTER X— 1865 391 

requested him to take charge of an appropria- 
tion bill and secure its passage. He did as I 
requested, but he was soon embarrassed by 
questions he could not answer, and had the bill 
postponed until my return. I felt for Mr, 
Davis a personal attachment, and I believe 
this kindly feeling was reciprocated." 

One of Davis's political antagonists in Con- 
gress, S. S. Cox,^ wrote, years after Davis's 
death, that he ''was the most gifted in elo- 
quence and logic of any member of Congress 
within the author's acquaintance." Cox re- 
called ''a certain boyishness in his manner and 
figure," which ''wore off the moment he began 
to speak." In Cox's estimation, Davis was 
"the best orator in every sense of the word, 
whom he has ever heard in Congress. He 
had logic, but it was logic set on fire with rhet- 
oric. As the war was winding up and liberty 
became almost as indispensable to our country 
and its institutions as the Federal Union itself, 
it was Henry Winter Davis who rose to the 
front rank of debate and by his silvery style 
and cogent logic held Congress almost en- 
thralled until something was accorded to the 
dignity of personal and public liberty which 
had been invaded by the excesses of the war." 
Cox continued to speak of Davis's "austerely 
energetic, yet elegant style. It is said that he 
had no humor, but humor is nearly allied to 



392 HENRY WINTER DAVIS 

wit and sarcasm. It is confessed that he had 
much of the latter, but it was frequently blend- 
ed, as the writer has seen, with good temper. 
In some of his speeches, especially those in the 
midst of the war, he made others sympathetic 
with his own heroic resolve." When he failed 
to produce the desired effect, the failure was, 
"perhaps, due to a lack of moderation in tem- 
per and to an enthusiasm which had been gen- 
erated in contending so closely in a border 
State with those who opposed him." 

An unfriendly critic is forced to bear testi- 
mony to Davis's ''zeal for civil liberty," which 
"will constitute his best claim to the gratitude 
of posterity," and to his possession of "literary 
gifts scarcely surpassed by any statesman then 
in public life." "^ 

Julian ^^ characterizes Davis as "the most 
formidable debater in the House. He was 
full of resources, while the rapidity of his ut- 
terance and the impetuosity of his speech bore 
down everything before it. The fire and force 
of his personality seemed to make him irresist- 
ible, and can only be likened to the power dis- 
played by Mr. Blaine in the House in his later 
and palmier years." 

These are the estimates of others, and, at the 
end, it falls to every biographer to sum up the 
character of the man whose life he has writ- 
ten, whom he has learned to know well, whom 



CHAPTER X— 1865 393 

he has tried to understand. As a boy, I was 
taught that Henry Winter Davis was a great 
man and an eloquent orator, and, as I have 
studied his life, my appreciation has grown of 
the fine gifts with which he was endowed and 
with his noble use of them. The impression 
has been made on some men that his was a 
complex nature, but it does not seem so to me. 
There is a remarkable sincerity and simplicity 
throughout his whole career. He was a fine 
scholar, a man of pure private life, of a strong 
religious faith, of a dauntless courage, of a 
lofty eloquence, of a changeless love for his 
country. He was a leader of men who gave 
and took blows in conflict, and, though he 
might be bitter in speech towards an antago- 
nist, he never permitted personal ends to inter- 
fere with public duty. Alexander Hamilton 
in 1800 and Daniel Webster in 1848 and 1852, 
when displeasing Presidential nominations 
had been made by their party, compare unfa- 
vorably as to their conduct with Davis in the 
Autumn of 1864, when he made his fine ad- 
dress in Philadelphia in behalf of Lincoln's 
election. Davis has been called an aristocrat, 
but in his heart the love of mankind burned 
with an inextinguishable blaze. His devotion 
to American principles never faltered, and he 
was keenly vigilant to guard against any dan- 
ger which might threaten the Republic. In 



394 HENRY WINTER DAVIS 

his younger years that danger seemed to him 
imminent from Russia, and he boldly warned 
his fellow-countrymen against it. Thatlovefor 
his country, for the principles of the Declara- 
tion of Independence, and for the provisions of 
the Constitution led him to strive to obtain 
freedom and civil rights for the negro slave 
and to resist any setting aside of the frame of 
national government, no matter how great the 
need for this might seem. 

Sir George Otto Trevelyan has recently 
written :^^ ''The American people, during 
every great crisis in their history, have shown 
themselves willing to be strongly, and even 
autocratically, handled by rulers whom they 
themselves have voluntarily placed in power." 

However true this might be of Americans 
in general, it was far from true of Davis, who 
ever guarded with extreme jealousy the ob- 
servance of constitutional provisions. He was 
anxious that the Executive should not en- 
croach one inch upon the sphere of the Legis- 
lature, and denounced such encroachment 
whenever he found it. 

Detraction has found little to say against 
Davis, except that he made bitter attacks upon 
the political conduct of his adversaries, and 
that he was a leader of men whose conduct at 
elections was rough and turbulent. As to the 
former charge, who was not bitter in those 



CHAPTER X— 186? 395 

strenuous times but Lincoln and Reverdy 
Johnson? Davis's bitterness, like that of the 
Psalmist of old, came from the fact that 
he believed his adversaries to be the opponents 
of a righteous cause. As to the latter charge, 
his friends admitted that Davis was sometimes 
mistaken in his lieutenants and reposed too 
much confidence in unworthy men. There is 
little doubt also that in those old, bad political 
times in Baltimore the temptation to fight the 
devil with fire was great, and that a man who 
was scrupulously upright in his own conduct 
might shut his eyes and permit henchmen to 
perform lawless deeds with less blame than 
would be given in later, better days. 

When one admits all that the advocatus dia- 
boli can adduce, there are found no more than 
a few spots on the sun, and the glorious lustre 
of Davis's brilliant character is only slightly 
dimmed. He loved America so well that he 
would not willingly suflfer those to come to its 
shores and share in the rule of the land who 
seemed to him to be unworthy to be called 
Americans. He loved his State so well that 
he was not willing that a single man within its 
borders should remain a slave. He loved the 
United States so well that he put forth his 
whole effort that the land should remain 
united and the spirit of secession and division 
should be put to flight forever. For this faith- 



396 HENRY WINTER DAVIS 

ful service and this whole-souled devotion to 
his country, this fiery soul deserved well of it. 
Maryland has borne many famous sons, but 
none loved her more unselfishly, more com- 
pletely than he. For this love and for his great 
service to the Union, men may well preserve 
the memory of the name of Henry Winter 
Davis. 

NOTES ON CHAPTER X. 

1. Speeches and Addresses, 556. Capt. H. P. Goddard, in 
the Baltimore Sunday Herald of March 8, 1903, quoting Rev. C. 
Herbert Richardson, says that Davis remarked about this time 
that the military commission appointed to try the assassins of 
Lincoln, was without legal warrant, and that President Johnson 
might as well have called out the marines and shot down the 
prisoners. 

2. Vol. 2, p. 235. 

3. Speeches and Addresses, 565. 

4. Speeches and Addresses, 585. On July 26 (Rhodes, vol. 
5> P- 534) 3 letter was written by Davis to Sumner (vide Sum- 
ner's Manuscripts in the Harvard University Library), asking 
whether Massachusetts would tolerate Dawes, who sustained 
the President and whose speech Davis found "very discourag- 
ing." 

5. Creswell, Speeches and Addresses, XXL 

6. Appleton's Annual Cyclopedia for 1865 states that he 
died of typhoid-pneumonia, resulting from a cold bath, taken 
while suffering with a heavy cold. 

7. Creswell, Speeches and Addresses, XXL 

8. Creswell, Speeches and Addresses, XIV, speaks of "his 
lifeless body, as beautiful as the dead Absalom." 

9. Joseph M. Cushing acted as Secretary. Resolutions of re- 
gret were adopted, which were proposed by a committee, of 
which Hon. William J. Albert was chairman. 

10. In the United States Court memorial addresses were 
also made by Judge W. F. Giles and W. J. Jones, and, in the 
Criminal Court, by Judge H. L. Bond and George C. Maund. 



CHAPTER X— 186? 397 

11. Reverdy Johnson, Jr., acted as secretary of the meeting. 

12. C. J. M. Gwinn also spoke. 

13. In Neiv York Independent of January 11, 1866, reprinted 
in Works, X, 104-108. 

14. Sumner's biographer. Pierce (vol. IV, p. 293), refers to 
this warm tribute by Sumner to Davis. 

15. 2 Diary, 409. On the other hand. Riddle's Wade speaks 
of him (p. 259) as "one of the ablest and most brilliant men of 
his time." 

16. See Speeches and Addresses, 9. 

17. Andrew Johnson and half of the Senators were absent. 

18. The atrabilious Welles wrote in his Diary for the Day, 
vol. 2, p. 438, injuring his own memory more than Davis's by 
stating that he felt that the celebration had an ulterior purpose. 
Davis was a "private citizen who died in Baltimore, two or 
three months since, but who had been a conspicuous actor among 
the radicals. He possessed genius, a graceful elocution, and 
erratic ability of a certain kind; but was an uneasy spirit, an 
unsafe and undesirable man, without useful talents for his coun- 
try or mankind. Having figured as a leader, with Thaddeus 
Stevens, Wade and others in their intrigues, extraordinary hon- 
ors are now paid him. A programme, copied almost literally 
from that of the twelfth in memory of Mr. Lincoln, is sent out. 
Orders to commemorate this distinguished Plug Ugly and Dead 
Rabbit are issued, and the whole is a burlesque which partakes 
of the ridiculous more than the solemn, intended to belittle the 
memory of Lincoln and his policy, as much as to exalt Davis, 
who opposed it. I would not go. The radicals wished Davis 
to be considered the equal or superior of Lincoln." The small- 
minded man could neither forget that Davis had opposed him, 
nor could he refuse a grudging eulogy. 

19. Speeches and Addresses, XII. 

20. Speeches and Addresses, XXIX. 

21. Speeches and Addresses, XXXI. 

22. Speeches and Addresses, XXXIII. Appleton's Annual 
Cyclopedia for 1865 (p. 305) thus spoke of Davis: "His intellect 
was admirably suited to his profession — keen, inventive, salient, 
and with that power of continuous thought which is essential to 
every man that has to do with affairs of the forum or of the 
State. As a politician, his unflinching integrity often assumed 
the appearance of audacity, and, by nature self-reliant, he sel- 



398 HENRY WINTER DAVIS 

dom permitted the opinions of friends to influence his own reso- 
lutions; hence, by those who made expediency their cardinal 
doctrine, he was sometimes denounced as self-willed and im- 
practicable. His Southern birth and education, his political 
hopes, which were always high, and his professional interests, 
to which he was much attached, weighed as nothing against his 
faith in the principles of the Declaration, of humanity, of free- 
dom, and of equal rights." 

23. I, Anecdotes of Public Men, 302. 

24. Vide Moore's American Congress, 460. 

25. Gail Hamilton's Blaine, 239. 

26. Vol. I, p. 499. 

27. Vol. 2, p. 43. 

28. Vol. I, p. 194. 

29. Three Decades of Federal Legislation, p. 92. 

30. McCarthy, p. 283. 

31. George W. Julian's Political Recollections, p. 360. 

32. G. O. Trevelyan, George HI, and C. J. Fox, vol. 2, p. 
301. 



INDEX 



Abolitionists, lOO, 231, 269, 315. 

Abolitionists and rebellion, 168, 192, 193. 

Adams, John Quincy, 159. 

Adams, Charles Francis, 184, 186. 

Admission of States into the Union, 121 to 127, 129, 130. 

Admiralty, Board of, 325 to 330, 342, 347. 

Aiken, William, 84, 85, no. 

Alabama, The, 230, 231, 348. 

Alexandria, Va., ii, 15, 343. Davis practices law there, 64, 65. 

Albemarle, The, 348. 

Albert, William J., 396. 

Allegany County, Union, 199. 

Alleghany Mountains, 21. 

Allen, Capt. J., 43. 

American Party, see Know Nothings. 

American Party, Davis's pamphlets on, in 1854, 80. 

Anderson, Major Robert, 188. 

Annapolis, 7, 10, 11, 233; State House, 146. 

Anne Arundel County, 11, 67. 

Appointments to Military and Naval Academies, 347. 

Appropriation bills in 1856, 99. 

Arkansas admitted as State, 126; Congressmen in 1863, 238 
to 241. 

Arkansas, Reconstruction of, 242, 243, 268, 287, 290, 339. 

Arbitrary arrests, 339. 

Army appropriations, 191. 

Army, management of criticised by Davis in 1858,135,136,142. 

Army, management of criticised by Davis in i860, 161. 

Army post, opposed when without departmental recommenda- 
tion, 159. 

Army officers, 341; too old in 1858, 135; need of organization 
in i86i, 202. 

Army of the Potomac, 220. 

Army, Confederate, in Virginia, must be destroyed, 221. 

Aristocratic character of Davis, 66. 

Astor House, 232. 

Ashley, James M., 330. 

Attainder, Bill of, 211, 244. 

B 

Bache, Benjamin F., 34, 45. 

Baltimore visited by Davis as a boy, 12; Virginian's opinion 
of, 42. 

Baltimore, Davis's removal to, 65. 



400 INDEX. 

Baltimore, Know Nothings in 1854, 80. 

Baltimore, Election of 1854, 83; naturalization in, 95. 

Baltimore, Election of 1852, 96; lawlessness of elections, 96. 

Baltimore, Election of 1856, loi. 

Baltimore, Election of 1857, 112, 113. 

Baltimore, Election of 1858, 132. 

Baltimore, Election of 1859, 143. 

Baltimore, Government buildings in, iii, 158. 

Baltimore police taken from city authorities, 147, 190. 

Baltimore Street Car Company Charter, 147. 

Baltimore's position, if Maryland united with South, 174, 175. 

Baltimore, Railroads in, 191. 

Baltimore occupied by General Butler, 199. 

Baltimore sentiment in April, 1861, 195, 199, 213; in autumn, 
1861, 197. 

Baltimore, Election of, 1861, 196. 

Baltimore, Habeas corpus suspended in, 215. 

Baltimore, Davis speaks at, in 1863, 217, 299. 

Baltimore, Davis speaks at, in 1864, 299. 

Baltimore, Negroes, in, 273. 

Baltimore, Elections in defended, 283, 285, 286, 343, 344. 

Baltimore Republican National Convention of 1864, 304. 

Baltimore fortifications, 341. 

Baltimore Society during the war, 371. 

Baltimore and Ohio Railroad, 12, 41, 158, 191. 

Banks, N. P., 84, no, 221, 286, 311, 312. 

Bates, Edward, 137, 168. 

Barney, Joshua, 221. 

Badger, Col. James, 234. 

Bell, John, supported by Davis for Presidency, 160, 162, 165, 
169 to 171, 191, 192, 200. 

Bible in schools, 134. 

Blaetterman, Prof. George, 46, 63. 

Blaine, James G., 85, 256, 295, 296, 318, 347, 388, 389; admira- 
tion of for Davis, 157, 188. 

Blair, Frank P., 193, 342. 

Blair, Montgomery, 189, 192, 193, 234, 267, 269, 315, 346, 347. 

Bladensburg, 52, 221. 

Blockade, 207. 

Bond, Hon. Hugh, L., 192, 236, 274, 288, 371, 396. 

Boutwell, George S., 318. 

Bowie, Thomas F., 116. 

Breckenridge, John C, 163 to 165, 170, 171. 

Brevet officers, 135. 

Brooklyn, N. Y., 203. 

Bradford, Gov. A. W., 228, 300. 

Brooks, Henry P., 115, 116, 141. 

Brooks, Isaac, 79. 

Brooks, James, 266. 

Brooks, Preston, 85. 

Brown, Judge Geo. Wm., 79. 

Brown, John, 153, 155, 163, 168, 188. 

Bounties, 263. 



INDEX, 



401 



Bonnycastle, Prof. Charles, 47, 63. 
Brune, F. W., 79. 
Buckingham, C. P., 34, 45. 

Buchanan, James, 88, 90, 103, 127, 172, 309; his administra- 
tion, 122, 128, 160, 180, i8i, 189, 203, 388. 
Bull Run, Battle of, 201, 314. 
Butler, B. F., 199, 347. 
Burial of Davis, 374. 



Calhoun, John C, 127, 132, 142. 

Canada, Reciprocity treaty, 261, 262. 

Candidates for office, 163. 

Carlisle, Pa., 8. 

Cambridge, Md., 299. 

Cecil County, Union, 199. 

Chandler, Zachariah, 255, 347. 

Character of Davis, 375, 379, 381, 387, 388, 390, 393. 

Charleston, S. C, Attack on, 281, 327. 

Charlestown, W. Va., 41. 

Charlottesville, 57, 6i. 

Chase, Salmon P., 287, 304, 375, 384, 385. 

Chase, Bishop Philander, 19, 37, 45. 

Central America, 258. 

Chicago, 307, 354. 

China, 10, 17. 

Clay, Clement C, 51, 63. 

Clay, Henry, 25, 38, 50, 129, 140, 151, 166, 167. 

Clayton-Bulwer Treaty, 141. 

Clayton, John M., 67. 

Cleveland, Chauncey F., of Connecticut, 159. 

Civil Appropriation bill, 192. 

Civil War, cost of, 355. 

Civil War, to be prosecuted to finish, 214 to 216, 218 to 221, 
230, 231, 252, 263, 266, 279, 306 to 309, 314, 316, 331, 357. 

Civil War, unique, 232. 

Coast Survey, Davis defends, 136. 

Cobb, Howell, no. 

Coercion of citizens, not States, 120. 

Coffin, Charles Carleton, 217. 

Coke upon Littleton, 54, 55. 

Colfax, Schuyler, 294, 333, 347, 386. 

Colonization of negroes impossible, 216, 222, 229, 269, 270 to 
272. 

Commutation money, 262, 263, 265. 

Compensation for slaves, 269 to 271, 301, 303. 

Compromise, Political, doubtful of success in 1852, 73, 74; in 
1857, 106. 

Compromise of 1850, 91, 93, 166, 213. 

Confederate Army must be defeated, 202. 

Confedrate States, Recognition of, 276, 278. 

Confiscation of rebels' property, 207, 211 to 213, 216, 243 to 
245, 314, 339- 



402 INDEX. 

Congress, Candidacy of Davis for, in i86i, 194 to 196. 
Congress, Election of Davis to, in 1856, 82. 
Congress, Election of Davis to, in 1858, 114 to 116, 144, 285. 
Congress, Election of Davis to, in 1862, 217, 235, 236, 
Congress, Compromise measures of, 1861, 172, 177, 183 to 185. 
Congress, Memorial to Davis, 385. 
Congress, Power of, in war, 207. 
Congress, Power of, to admit States, 124, 125, 127 
Congress punishes words, 275 to 277. 
Congress, Struggle with President Johnson, 370. 
Congress, Relation to foreign policy, 258-261, 317-319, 346. 
Conkling, Roscoe, 388. 
Connecticut, Negro suffrage, in, 365, 369. 
Connell, Wilmer, 16, 19, 28. 
Conscription, 263, 264 to 266, 341. 

Constitution of United States, Authority of, 125, 154, 178, 182, 
183, 210, 223. 

Convention of P. E. Diocese of Virginia, 57, 58. 

Cooper Union, 231. 

Corruption of Congressmen in 1857, 108. 

Constitutional Union I'icket in i860, 165. 

Consular and Diplomatic Bill of 1858, 119. 

Corwin, Thomas, 156, 184. 

Cotton not king, 196. 

Courage of Davis, 387, 397. 

Court of Claims, Jurisdiction of, 281. 

Courts-martial, 2ii, 333, 334, 337. 

Cox, C. C, 375. 

Cox, 8. S., 242, 318, 320, 337, 339, 340, 391. 

Creswell, John A. J., 78, 217, 275, 297, 298, 300, 386. 

Crisfield, John W., 275, 301. 

Cross Street Market, Political meeting at, 114, 115. 

Crittenden Compromise, 196. 

Cuba, 169. 

Cullen, Elisha D,, 84, no. 

Currency Bill of 1864, 282. 

Currency, Depreciated, 322 to 325. 

Cushing, Wra. B., 348. 

Cushing, Joseph M., 4, 297, 345, 371, 396. 



Davis, Mrs. Constance Gardiner, 64. 

Davis, Dr. David, 15, 18, 43. 

Davis, Rev. Henry Lyon, 7, 8, 16, 26, 40, 42, 272. 

Davis, Mrs. Jane Brown Winter, 10, 16. 

Davis, Miss Jane Mary Winter, 10, 17, 42 44. 

Davis, Jefferson, 39, 361. 

Davis, Prof. John A. D., 47, 51, 53, 56, 63. 

Davis, Justice David, 18, 375. 

Davis, Miss Mary Winter, 3, 109. 

Davis, Mrs. Nancy M., 3, 109, in, 371, 384. 

Davis's death, 372, 373, 396. 



INDEX. 40J 

, v'l 

Davis's dress, 66. 

Davis-Wade Manifesto, 288, 289 to 296, 344, 345. 

Davis-Wade Bill, see Reconstruction. 

Dawes, Henry L., 239, 283 to 285, 332, 343, 346, 396. 

Dayton, William L., 259, 260. 

Deficiency Bills, 99, icxj. 

Delaware, 198. 

Democrats, Danger from their success in 1864, 218. 

Democrats, Disloyal, 218 to 220, 278, 313, 314; opposition to 
Lincoln, 243, 308. 

Democrats, Dissolution of party, in i860, 160. 

Democrats, in i860, 162, 171, 178. 

Democrats, Policy of terrorism denounced by Davis, 148, 153, 
165, 169. 

Democratic party in 1856, Davis's opinion of, 89, 91, 96, 104, 
106. 

Democrats responsible for war, 219, 227. 

Democrats, War, 197, 219. 

De I'Huys, Drouyn, 260. 

Devotion to principle, 387. 

Dickinson College, 8, 16. 

District of Columbia, Slavery in, 187, 213, 215, 245, 315. 

Dix, John A., 189, 215. 

Doane, Bishop George W., 65. 

Donaldson, Thomas, 79. 

Douglas, Stephen A., 164, 165, 171. 

Dred Scott Case, 132, 139, 140, 165, 192, 203, 359. 

Dueling at University of Virginia, 52. 

Dupont, Admiral S. F., 231, 280, 281, 342, 343. 

Dupont, Mrs. S. F., 372. 



Early, Gen. Jubal A., 304. 

Eastern Female High School, Davis's address in 1858, 133. 
Eastern Shore Campaign of 1863, 217, 267, 299, 300. 
Eastern Shore politics in 1859, 156. 
Easton, Md., 298. 
Economy favored, 136, 141, 160. 
Election judges. Duties of, 96. 
Electoral votes for President, Counting of, 102. 
Elkton, Md., 13, 196, 217, 298. 

Eloquence of Davis, 66, 376, 380, 384, 386, 387, 389 to 392. 
Emancipation, 201; proclamation, 215, 216, 221, 222, 226, 253, 
268, 291, 314, 354- 

Emancipation in Maryland, 217, 228, 231, 267, 297 to 300, 315, 

363, 385- 

Eminent domain, 158. 

Eminent domain. Did Congress possess it in Maryland, 99. 

England, Alliance with advocated, 71, 73, 74. 

England in 1861, 181; hostility, 230 to 232, 361. 

English influence at Kenyon, 31. 

English literature, 29. 



404 INDEX. 

Equador, 341. 

Europe, Davis's tour in 1854, 80. 

Europe, Opposition of, to United States, 357. 

Eutaw House, Baltimore, 217. 

Everett, Edward, 165. 

Expenditure of Government within year, 119. 

Expenditure over appropriation condemned, 135. 

Export duties, 316, 349. 



Farnsworth, John F., 318, 319, 336. 

Farragut, Admiral, 327. 

Fearlessness of Davis, 67, 114, 210, 375, 379, 380, 384; shown 
in speech on censure of House of Delegates, 144. 

Federal Judiciary, Position of, 87. 

"Federalist," The, 51. 

Fillmore, Millard, 80, 88, 90, 91, 93, 100, 150. 

Findlay, John V. L., 210. 

First Maryland Regiment, 286. 

Florida, 359. 

Florida, The, 230. 

Foreign Affairs Committee, Davis's service on, 317. 

Forney, John W., 388. 

Fort Fisher, 347. 

Fort Monroe, Barracks at, 158. 

Fort Sumter, 188, 204, 281, 314. 

Fort Wagner, 221. 

Fox, G.ustavus V., 281, 326, 328, 342, 345, 347. 

France, hostile, 232; in Mexico, 257 to 266, 317. 

Fremont, John C, 88, 92, 201. 

French language, 46, 53. 

French Colonies, Negroes in, 270. 

French Revolution, 30; Republic, 357. 

Frick, William F., 79. 

Friday Club, 66. 

Front Royal, Va., 286. 

Fugitive Slave law, 100, 131, 163, 185. 

Fuller, Thomas J. D., 84, no. 

Funeral of Davis, 374, 375. 

Fusion between Republicans and Southern Whigs proposed in 
1859, 137, 138; in i860, 161, 169, 170, 191. 



Gambier, Ohio, 19, 22 to 40. 
Granson, John, 320, 343. 
Gardiner, Miss Constance C, 64. 
Gardiner, William C, 64. 
Garfield, James A., 321, 348. 
Garner, Frank, 12. 
Gassoway, Stephen G., 34, 35. 
Georgetown, Md., 13. 



I 



INDEX. 405 



German language, 46, 53. 

Gettysburg, Battle of, 217, 220. 

Gibbon, Edward, as a historian, 30, 43. 

Giddings, Joshua S., 100. 

Giles, William F., 34, 35, 396. 

Gilmer, John A., 144, 145. 

Gilmore, Gen. Quincy A., 221. 

Glenn, W. Wilkins, 234. 

Goddard, Henry P., 4, 78, 79, 192, 233, 345, 396. 

Goods in bond destroyed by fire, iii. 

Graham, John T., 4, 192, 193, 288, 346, 371, 372. 

Greece, Ancient, overthrown by Macedon, 73. 

Greek language, 17. 

Greeley, Horace, 67, 137, 193, 293, 380. 

Groome, J. C, 141. 

Grow, Galusha A., 93, no, 167, 191. 

Gwinn, C. J. M., 397. 



H 



Habeas Corpus Act, Suspended, 205, 208, 215, 224, 311, 312, 
320, 321. 

Hale, Senator John P., 348. 

Hall, E. J., 190. 

Halleck, Gen. H. W., 375. 

Hamilton, Alexander, 223, 289. 

Hampton, Va., 12. 

Harrington, H. W., 338. 

Harris, Benjamin G., 141, 275, 282, 337, 343, 344. 

Harris, J. Morrison, 84, 109, 115, 116, 144, 376. 

Harris, W. Hall, 4. 

Harrison, Prof. Gessner, 46, 63. 

Harrison, W. H., 39, 60, 214. 

Harvard Law School, 45. 

Havre de Grace, 12. 

Hicks, Thomas H., 114, 141, 198, 199, 200. 

Higher Law Doctrine, 100. 

History, Writers of, 29. 

Hobart, Rev. Dr. John H., 374. 

Holt, Joseph, 189. 

Holy Alliance, 71. 

Home life of Davis, 109. 

Hopkins, Johns, 196. 

Hosmer, James K., Opinion of Davis, 236, 255, 340. 

House of Representatives, Corruption of members in 1857, loi. 

House of Representatives, Election to, 87. 

House of Representatives, Use of its Hall, 343. 

House of Representatives, Visited by Davis in 1865, 371. 

Hunt, F. K., 34. 

Hunter, R. M. T., 51, 63. 



4o6 INDEX. 

I 

Independence Day Oration in 1865, 354. 
Independence, Declaration of, 354, 364, 380, 394, 398. 
Indians in Massachusetts, 270. 

Insurrection, Power of Federal Government to suppress, 183, 
184, 204 to 207, 223, 225, 228, 238, 249, 250. 
Irish in New York, 270. 



Jackson, Andrew, 25, 215, 221, 231, 295. 

Jamaica, 270. 

Jefferson, Thomas, 48, 50, 100, 215, 360. 

Johns, Rev. H. V. D., 65. 

Johnson, Andrew, 287, 350, 353, 360, 363, 366, 370, 396, 397. 

Johnson, Reverdy, 3, 67, 79, 165, 210, 234, 312, 386. 

Johnson, Reverdy, Jr., 397. 

Jones, W. J., 396. 

Julian, George W., 349, 392. 

K 

Kansas election in 1855, Davis's speech on, 85 to 88. 
Kansas-Nebraska question, 91, 93, 103 to 106, 121, 122, 126 to 
131, 141, 155, 158, 160, 166, 285, 359. 
Kenly, John R., 286. 
Kennedy, Anthony, 143, 191. 
Kentucky, 222. 

Kenyon College, 9, 19 to 40; curriculum, 29. 
Keith, Lawrence M., 85, no. 
Keith, Rev. Revel, 59, 63. 
Key, P. Barton, 16, 18. 
Know Nothings in House of Delegates fail to support Davis, 

Know Nothings, 80, 190; political views of, 81; position on 
slavery, 108 ; eulogized, 285. 
Kossuth, Louis, 71. 



Labor, Davis upon, 75, 76. 
Lake, William A., 109. 
Land, Non-resident owners of, 142. 
Lane, Joseph, 100. 
Latin, 11, 17, 25. 

Latin America, Endangered by France, 257; Republican policy 
toward, 258, 259. 

Lecompton Constitution, 121, 122, 127 to 130. 

Lee, Gen. Robert E., 39, 221. 

Legal ability of Davis, 375, 378, 389, 391, 397. 

Liberia, 14, 44, 145, 216. 

Lieutenant-general, 341. 

Ligon, Thomas W., 113, 141, 346. 



INDEX. 407 

Lincoln, Abraham, In i860, 162, 163, 166, 168, 171, 191, 218; 
considers Davis for Cabinet, 189, 190, 192; appoints Blair, 189; 
opinion of Davis, 192; inauguration of, 198; must be supported, 
200, 201, 232, 268. Border State policy weak, 201 ; Davis's opin- 
ion of in 1861, 209; habeas corpus policy, 215, 224; writes as to 
Davis's Congressional candidacy, 235, 338; vetoes Davis-Wade 
Bill, 255 to 257; relations with France, 260; does not aid Mary- 
land Union men, 267, 315; issues proclamation on Davis-Wade 
Bill, 286 to 288. 

Lincoln and Davis-Wade Manifesto, 293 to 297. 

Lincoln, Assassination of, 396. 

Lincoln, flight through Baltimore needless, 336. 

Lincoln opposed by Davis, 382. 

Lincoln, Renomination for Presidency, 304. 

Lincoln supported by Davis in campaign of 1864, 305 to 308, 
310, 346, 393. 

Lincoln, Welles compares his memorial with Davis's, 397. 

Lincoln's second inaugural address, 354; his reconstruction 
policy, 366. 

Lisovski, Admiral, 232. 

Literary societies at Kenyon College, 25 to 33. 

Literary style of Davis, 387, 390. 

Littlejohn, DeWitt C, 346. 

Long, Alexander, expelled from House of RepresentativeSj, 
275 to 277. 

Louisiana, Annexation of, 359. 

Louisiana, Reconstruction of, 230, 241, 253, 268, 287, 290, 291, 
316, 366, 

Lovell, Gen. Mansfield, 16, 18. 

Lowe, Gov. Enoch Louis, 82. 

Loyal citizens of rebel States, 121. 

Luther vs. Borden, 208, 249, 254, 291. 

Lynch, Dr., of Baltimore county, 145. 

M 

McCarthy on Davis-Wade Manifesto, 295. 

McClellan, George B., 12, 214, 307, 309, 311, 312, 314. 

McClernand, John A., 144, 190. 

McDowell, T., 13. 

Mcllwaine, Bishop Charles P., 19, 36 to 38, 45, 59. 

McKaig, State Senator, 145. 

Madison, James, 223. 

Majority, Right of, 187. 

Malvern Hill, 12. 

Marley Bridge, 67. 

Marshall, Humphrey, 109. 

Martial law, 205, 207, 335. 

Martin, Judge R. N., 375. 

Maryland a border State, 86, 131, 172, 173, 204. 

Maryland campaign of i860, 190. 

Maryland coal trade, 261. 

Maryland Congressmen ordered seated in 1863, 236, 266. 



4o8 INDEX. 

Maryland Constitution of 1864, 217, 267, 299, 300, 304. 

Maryland Delegates to Republican Convention of i86o, 159. 

Maryland election of 1863, 217, 267. 

Maryland excludes Secessionists from suffrage, 300. 

Maryland, Failure to fill quota of troops, 200. 

Maryland Gubernatorial election of 1857, 113. 

Maryland Institute address of Davis, 1853, 74. 

Maryland in War of 1812, 117. 

Maryland Legislature and proposal to censure Davis for vote 
for Pennington, 145, 146, 156; Davis's speech on the censure, 
146. 

Maryland Legislature in 1861, 198 to 200, 311. 

Maryland Legislature, Session of i860, 190. 

Maryland, Love for the Union, 93. 

Maryland, Negroes' vote in, 369. 

Maryland, Slavery in, 272. 

Maryland, Struggle for Union, 172; ruined by disunion, 173 
to 177, 189, 191, 192, 194, 205, 286. 

Maryland, Treatment of disunionists in, 312, 321. 

Maryland, Union sentiment in, 177, 186, 187, 195, 197, 198, 200, 
336. 

Mason and Dixon Line, 200. 

Massachusetts, Elections in, 284, 343. 

Matthews, R. Stockett, 378. 

Maund, George C, 371, 396. 

Manual Labor Education, 24. 

May, Henry, 83, 109, 196, 233. 

Maximilian I in Mexico, 358. 

Meade, Bishop William, 58, 63. 

Merryman, Ex parte, 208. 

Methodists, 14. 

Meteors of 1834, 28. 

Mexico, 270; Buchanan's aggressions on, 159, i6o, 169. 

Mexico, French aggression in, m, 230, 231, 257 to 260, 317. 
3i9» 341, 358. 

Miami Indians, 142. 

Michigan, 39; admission as State, 127, 132. 

Military governors, 338. 

Military imprisonments, 320, 334, 335. 

Military rule in South, 364, 369. 

Milligan, George B., 4. 

Minnesota, admission of, 126, 131, 132. 

Mississippi (State), Opinion of, in 1838, 44. 

Missouri, 222, 315; Congressmen in 1863, 236, 268, 282, 284. 

Missouri Compromise, 106, 130, 167, 185, 359. 

Mobile, 327, 329. 

Monitors disapproved, 327. 

Monroe Doctrine, 74, 358. 

Moore, Mr., student at Kenyon, 28. 

Moors in Spain, 270. 

Morgan, E. D. 304. 

Morrill Agricultural College Bill, 161. 

Morrill, Justin S., 211, 347. 



INDEX. 409 

Morris, John B., 109. 
Morris, Miss Nancy, 109. 
Napoleon III, 72, iii, 181, 230, 231, 358. 
"Nation," The, 364,-380. 

National Banks, 343 ; taxation of by States, 282. 
National road, 21. 

Naturalized citizens, privileges of, 94. 
Naval Committee, 328; Davis member of, 280. 
Navy, 325 to 330, 348. _ _ 

Navy, Abolition of sailing vessels in, 158; reorganization of, 
161. 

Nebraska, no, 142. 

Negro question and Democrats, 161, 179. 

Negro suffrage, 330, 350, 352 to 354, 362 to 366, 369, 370. 

Negroes, Enlistment of, 221, 228, 229, 231, 236, 263 to 265, 274, 

315* 342» 356, 362. 

Negroes, Equality with whites, 229, 269, 271, 272, 301. 

Negroes, Free,iin Maryland, 230, 272, 274, 342. 

Negroes, Free, in Maryland, attempt to re-enslave in i860, 

147- 

Negroes, Freedom and position of, 222. 

Negroes listen to Davis, 298. 

Negroes' tribute to Davis, 383. 

Newark, N. J., 214. 

New Jersey, 36. 

New Mexico, no; slavery in, 138, 186. 

New Orleans, 215. 

Newspapers, Davis's attitude toward, ii8. 

New York City, 231, 232; riots of 1863, 270. 

New York City Conference against Lincoln, 305. 

"New York Tribune," 137, 293. 

Niagara Falls, 67. 

Nicholls, Letter of Davis to, 191. 

Nicolay and Hay on Davis-Wade Manifesto, 295. 

Ninetenth Century, History of, 71. 

Norfolk, Va., 174. 

North Carolina, 369. 

North, Conservative position of, in i860, 168. 

Nullification movement, 25. 

O 

Oath of allegiance, 339. 
Odd Fellows, Davis's opinion of, 76. 
Officer, Extra pay for, 98. 

Ohio, 21, 126; boundary dispute with Michigan, 39; contrast 
with Virginia, 49. 

Ordnance, Purchase of, 159. 

Oregon, 100. 

Orr, James L., 51, 63. 

P 

Pacific Railroad, 119, 158, 161. 

Panama, 143. 

Paper money, 117, 118. 



4XO 



INDEX. 



Paraguay, 98; expedition against, 135, 160. 

Parks, Rev. Martin P., 60, 63. 

Partridge, James T,, 194, 371. 

Patapsco river, 386; improvement, 110, 117. 

Pearce, James Alfred, 272. 

Pennington, William S., 93, no; elected Speaker, 144, 148 to 
150, 154, 161, 199. 

Pennsylvania, Foreign vote in 1856, 107. 

Pennsylvania's interest in the war, 220. 

"People of the United States," 132. 

Personal appearance of Davis, 372, 380, 396. 

Personal liberty laws, 185. 

Perry, O. H., 221. 

Peru, 358. 

Phelps, Gen. Charles £., 293. 

Philadelphia, Pa., 28, 218, 305. 

Phillips, Wendell, 193. 

Philosophy, 29. 

Pierce, E. L., 287, 340. 

Pierce, Franklin, Davis's opinion of, 88, 93, 102, 103. 

Pinkney, William, 129; speech on Missouri Compromise, 106, 
130, 131- 

Pitts, C. H., 79. 

Political bitterness, 15. 

Political prisoners, 211. 

Politics in 1852, 73. 

Port Hudson, 221. 

Port Royal expedition, 326, 342. 

Postal service, 142. 

Post Roads, Power to build, 98, 119, 120. 

Potomac river, 158, 174. 

President, Commander of Army, 206. 

President, Counting electoral votes for, 102. 

President, Power of, 139, 140, 232. 

Presidential election of 1836, 39. 

Presidential election of 1840, 61. 

Presidential election of 1852, 67. 

Presidential election of 1856, 80, 88, 92, 102, 105 to 107. 

Presidential election of i860, 160, 171, 179, 200; Democrats 
favor slave extension, 137; importance of, 138 to 141 attempt at 
fusion of Whigs and Repuljlicans, 137, 138, 191. 

Presidential election of i860, if thrown into Congress, 170. 

Presidential election of 1864, 218, 221, 305 to 309, 346. 

President's relation to Congress, 141, 143. 

Printing by National Government, 97, 98. 

Protection, 161. 

Protestant Episcopal Church Convention of Diocese of Vir- 
ginia, 57, 58 ; Davis's membership, 65, 66. 

Public lands in Kansas, 131, 142. 

Public opinion, 277. 

Public schools, 134. 

Pulaski, Steamship, 18. 



INDEX. 4.11 



Rafferty, Rev. William, 9, 16. 

Reading of Davis, 77, 377. 

Reagan, John H., 130. 

Reconstruction by President, 238 to 241, 243, 252, 292, 339 to 

341, 350, 364, 365- 

Reconstruction, Congress's power, 293, 330, 331, 340. 

Reconstruction, Congress's power to determine its own mem- 
bership, 291, 368. 

Reconstruction, Congressional power over, supported by Su- 
preme Court, 287, 344. 

Reconstruction, Davis-Wade Bill, 237, 246 to 248, 253 to 257, 
286, 290, 316, 340. 

Reconstruction, Importance of, 350, 361. 

Reconstruction, Restoration theory, 222; Congressional power 
over, 223, 224, 226, 228, 231, 240 to 243, 245, 249, 250, 254, 255, 
363, 368. 

Reeder, Gov. Andrew H., of Kansas, 85, no. 

Religious faith of Davis, 77, 377. 

Religious freedom, 133, 134. 

Representation, Unequal in Maryland, 300. 

Representative, Relation to constituents, 148, 149. 

Representative, Relation to country, 152 

Republican government, 368. 

Republican party in 1856, Davis's opinion of, 89, 107, 108. 

Republican party in i860, 162, 163, 166, 167. 

Republican party in 1864, 315. 

Republican Convention of i860, 159, 167, 193. 

Republican form of government, guarantee to States, 183, 206, 
223, 226, 231, 238, 241, 242, 248, 249, 251, 253, 352, 361, 368. 

Republicans in 1859, as to slavery in States, 150, 168, 188. 

Republicans in Maryland in i860, 157, 192. 

Restriction on States when admitted to the Union, 130, 131. 

Rhodes, John F., 339. 

Richardson, Rev. C. Herbert, 396. 

Richardson, William A., 84, no. 

Richmond, Va., 221, 343. 

Riddle's Life of Wade, 397. 

Ritchie, Thomas, 62, 63. 

River and harbor appropriations favored by Davis, 136, 161. 

Rives, William C, 61, 63. 

Roads for military purposes constitutional, 98, 119. 

Rogers, Prof. William Barton, 47, 53, 63. 

Roman Catholic Church, 67. 

Roman Catholics in Politics, 81. 

Romney, W. Va., 41. 

"Rupert of debate," 388. 

Russia, Dangers from, 68 to 74. 

Russia friendly in 1861, 202, 232. 

Russia serfdom abolished, 233. 



412 INDEX. 



Saint Anne's Church, Annapolis, 7. 

Saint John's College, Annapolis, 7, 8, 11, 16. 

Saint Paul street, residence of Davis, 372. 

Saint Paul's Protestant Episcopal Church, Baltimore, 374. 

Salary of officers, 322. 

Salisbury, Md., 217, 298. 

Sallust, 25. 

San Domingo, 270, 357. 

Savannah, 327. 

Schenck, Robert C, 347, 348. 

Schley, William, 375. 

Scholarship of Davis, 77, 89, 376, 389, 390. 

Schools in Alexandria, 65. 

Scott, Robert E., of Fauquier, 42, 45. 

Scott, General Winfield, 180, 214. 

Scott's novels, 15. 

Scovel, James M., 346. 

Secession, a conspiracy, 354. 

Secession and nullification in 1840, 50. 

Secession destroys State governments, 367. 

Secession, peaceful, a delusion, 173 ,176, 182, 196, 356. 

Secession, revolution, 92, 206, 241, 249. 

Secession, successful results of, 181; causes of, 184, 204, 360. 

Secessionists, 100. 

Secessionists in Baltimore in i86i, 197, in Congress, 276. 

Sectional parties condemned, 107. 

Seddon, James A., 51, 63. 

Senatorial candidacy of Davis, 210, 233. 

Seward, William H., 195, 257, 259, 260, 280, 317 to 319, 345. 

Sherman, John, 156, 166, 246, 256, 390. 

Shubrick, Admiral, 343. 

Sickles, Gen. Daniel, 16, 18. 

Sixth Massachusetts Regiment, 194, 213. 

Slaughter, Rev. Philip, 59, 63. 

Slaveholders' Convention in Maryland in 1859, 272. 

Slave trade, foreign, in 1858, 136, 137. 

Slave trade, interstate, 187. 

Slavery, cause of the war, 358, 359, 382. 

Slavery, abolition of by Constitutional amendment, 216, 226, 
227, 252, 255. 

Slavery, abolition of as result of war, 218, 268, 269, 315, 355. 

Slavery, attempt to have it ignored in Presidential platform 
of i860, 138, 163, 165. 

Slavery, development of justification of, 359. 

Slavery in District of Columbia, 213, 215. 

Slavery in forts and dockyards, 187. 

Slavery, growing in strength in South in 1859, 137. 

Slavery, Know Nothing opinion of, 82. 

Slavery minimized, 69; agitation deprecated in 1858, 144. 

Slavery in States, 188. 

Slavery in Territories, 138, 166, 167. 

Slavery in Territories, power of Congress over, 65, 82, 164, 
165, 169, 186. 



INDEX. 413 

Slavery, a theory of, to be avoided, 156. 
Slavery in United States Constitution, 369. 
Slavery in Virginia, 50, 59. 
Slavery, Whig view of, 140. 
Slaves freed when bought into State, 245. 
Slaves of rebels to be confiscated, 212. 
Slaves of Rev. H. L. Davis, 11 to 14, 43. 
Snow Hill, Md., 217, 298. 
Smeider, William, 34. 
Smith, Howard, 34. 
Smith, Job, 233. 
Smith, W. R., 109. 
Socialism, Davis's opinion, 76. 
South America, 259, 270. 

South Carolina, secession of, 171, 172; in 1861, 179, 180. 
South, prejudices of, 26. 
Southern Maryland, 267, 300. 
Sovereignty, Davis's view of, 69, 106, 124. 
Spain, 357. 

Spalding, Rufus P., 346. 
Sparrow, William, 34, 35, 45. 

Speakership, struggle for, 170; in 1855, 84; in 1859, 144, 148, 
153, 154, 156, 159, 161, 190. 
Spooner, Mrs., 14. 
Squatter Sovereignty, 105. 
Stanton, Edwin M., 189, 236, 315, 321, 375. 
State Bank Notes to be driven out, 282, 343. 
State, coercion of, 182, 196, 204. 
State rights, 51. 
State sovereignty, 131. 

States, claims of in Army Bill of 1859, 143. 
States, compacts between, 153, 176, 178. 
States, equality of, 106, 122, 124. 

States, not destroyed by war, 224, 225, 228, 242, 351, 356. 
Stephens, Alexander H., 104. 
Stephens on Pleading, 54. 
Stevens, Thaddeus, supported by Davis, 237, 318, 320, 323, 

333, 334, 341, 347, 397- 

Stewart, James A., 156, 157. 

Stirling, Archibald, Jr., 194, 288, 371, 379. 

Stockbridge, Henry, 4. 

Story, Joseph, Works of, 51, 54. 

Sub-treasury, 118. 

Suffrage a State issue, 368. 

Suffrage of men not yet naturalized, 131, 353. 

Suffrage of Southern whites after war, 351, 360, 362, 366. 

Sumner, Charles, 259, 305; eulogizes Davis, 380, 396, 397. 

"Sun" newspaper, 373. 

Supreme Court Reports, Alden's Index to, no. 

Susquehanna River improvement, 13, no. 

Swann, Thomas, 113, 373, 375. 

Swayne, Mr. Justice, 375. 

Syle, Rev. Edward W., lo, 17. 



414 INDEX. 

T 

Tacitus, 17, 42. 

Taney, Roger B., 89, 208. 

Tariff changes, effect of, 302. 

Tariff of 1857, 118. 

Taxation, 212; by Congress, 262; of slaves, 302, 303. 

Taylor, Zachary, 150, 215. 

Tehuantepec, 142. 

Tennessee, 222, 251, 268. 

Territories, government of, 87. 

Territories, power of Congress over, 130; slavery therein, 65, 
82, 104, 164. 

Texas, 126. 

Tilton, Theodore, 388. 

Toleration, religious, 133. 

Topeka Constitution, 93, 127. 

Towson, Md., 217. 

Transcontinental Exploring Expedition, 97 ; military road, 98, 
119. 

Treason, 213, 224, 225, 361. 

Treason, constructive, 93. 

Treasury notes, 117, 118, 322 to 325. 

Trevelvan, Sir George O., 394. 

"Tribune," N. Y., 194. 

Trumbull, Lyman, 354. 

Tucker, Prof. George, 47, 63. 

Tyng, kev. Stephen H., 59, 63. , 

U 

Union Club, Baltimore, 371, 373. 

Union men in South in 1840, 50. 

Union men in South in i860, 251, 252, 351, 352, 360. 

Uruguay, 98. 

Utah, Rebellion in, 120, 160, 183. 



Valk, W. W., 109. 

Vallandigham vs. Campbell, 142. 

Van Buren, Martin, 39, 61. 

Vattel's International Law, 54. 

Venezuela, 341. 

Vermont, 126. 

Vice-Presidency, Davis suggested for in 1864, 304. 

Virginia and John Brown's invasion 153, 155. 

Virginia's attempt to prevent secession, 186. 

Virginia, Importance of campaign in, 231. 

Virginia, Universit>^ of, buildings, 48. 

Virginia, Davis's tutorship in, 44. 

Virginia, University of, character of students, 52, 56. 

Virginia, University of, curriculum of, 46, 47. 

Virginia, University of, diplomas of, 53. 



INDEX. 415 

Virginia, University of, English training at, 52. 
Virginia, University of, invitation to Davis to address liter- 
ary societies in 1857, 115. 

Virginia, University of, law school, 47, 48, 54 to 56. 

Virginia, University of, literary societies at, 53. 

Virginia, University of, political opinions of students, 49, 129. 

Virginia, University of, religion at, 48, 49. 

Virginia, University of, social life at, 57. 

Virginia, University of, 46 to 58. 

Virginia, Reconstruction in, 226, 339, 361, 366. 

Virginia, Slavery in, 50, 253, 272, 291. 



W 

Wade, Benjamin F., 288, 292, 294, 296, 304, 305, 325, 348, 353, 

397. 

Walker, E. J., 109. 

Wallis, Severn T., 79. 

War Department' lacks confidence in Maryland, 200. 

War of 1812, Maryland's share in, 117. 

War of Ormuzd and Ahriman, 68 to 74, 

War, Power of President, 206 to 209, 332, 335. 

War, Proper method of conducting, 313. 

Washbourne, Elihu B., 217. 

Washington Aqueduct, 99, 120. 

Washington, Bushrod, 41. 

Washington, County, Union, 199. 

Washington, D. C, 66 suffrage in, 94, 96; railroad to, 343. 

Washington, D. C, in 1861, 199. 

Washington, Election riots in 1857, 116, 117, 160, 284, 346. 

Washington, George, 206, 207, 221, 223, 231. 

Washington, George, opinion on entangling alliances, 74. 

Washington's Birthday, 1866, 386. 

Watrous, Judge, of Texas, 142. 

Ways and Means Committee, Davis on, 86. 

Webster, Daniel, 106, 203, 254. 

Weed, Thurlow, 189. 

Welles, Gideon, 280, 293, 294, 304, 319, 328, 330, 342, 344, 347, 

348, 353, 383, 397- 

West, Miss, of the Woodyard, 15. 

West Point, 36, 158. 

West Virginia, a necessity if Virginia secedes, 175, 222, 251, 

315- 

Wheat, Mr., schoolmaster, 11. 

Wheaton's International Law, 54. 

Wheeler, John, 109. 

Whig, National Convention of 1852, 67. 

Whigs, Southern, in 1859, 137. 

Whiskey insurrection, 8, 206. 

Whitfield, J. W., Delegate from Kansas, 86. 

Whitney, Milton, 234. 

Whittingham, Bishop William R., 65. 



4i6 INDEX. 

Whyte, William Pinkney, 115. 

Wilkes, Admiral Charles, 329, 342. 

Wilkinson, Gen. James, 215. 

Wilmer, Rev. George T., 16, 18. 

Wilmer, Bishop Richard H., of Alabama, 16, i8. 

Wilmer, Mrs. William Holland, 15, 18. 

Wilmington, Del., 11, 13. 

Wilmot, David, of Pennsylvania, 159. 

Wing, Mr., treasurer of Kenyon College, 20. 

Winter, Miss Elizabeth Brice, 11, 42 to 44. 

Winthrop, Robert C, 67. 

Wise, Gov. Henry A., 113. 

Witnesses before Congressional Committee, loi. 

Woart, Rev. Loring, 15. 

Women, Proper sphere of, 134. 

Wool, Duty on, 157. 

Wool, Gen. John E., 215, 234. 



Yale Law School, 45. 
Yeas and Nays, 282. 
Yellott, Coleman, 190. 



ZollicoflFer, Felix M., 84, no. 



^ 



%-# 



J-^' \ 






x^^'% 



%, 



^^ V^ 









.^^^^^ ."■ #^ 












.-% "^rl 



0^ c«^''^^,.%. 



rf- f- 



>#' 









-^^^ v^^ 



.-^^ ^ 



i\. 






■>'^. .^ 






-0' 









C"^ -.^^.-vr^. ''. 






^,^-^^^^: 



v'^' 






'^^ s^- 



's •- ^</^, ,w>^ 



.0- % 









>'^- : 






^^-^ .^^^ ^ 



,-0- 



^^. - 



T-^O 



.>\^ 



^c. v^' 



V- ,0 



'•i-. 




>=v. 



% 










■^ t 



c^ 






^ "^ N^ ^-. '^ ;-^p^^ ^ 



.Oo 






.0- 







^ » <, 









,-^^ 



^o 



•^-^.^ 



''/■ v' 



-^^^^ 



V \' -X- . ^ 



.*p^. 















^o*'' 










■'^^^^^ , 



